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Impact on households and critical infrastructures from electricity failure Two case studies and a survey on public preparedness
Grétar Már Pálsson
Faculty of Civil and Environmental
Engineering
University of Iceland 2015
Impact on households and critical infrastructures from electricity failure Two case studies and a survey on public preparedness
Grétar Már Pálsson
30 ECTS thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of a Magister Scientiarum degree in Civil Engineering
Advisors
Dr. Björn Karlsson Böðvar Tómasson
Faculty Representative
Sveinn Júlíus Björnsson
Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering School of Engineering and Natural Sciences
University of Iceland
Reykjavik, May 2015
Impact on households and critical infrastructures - Two case studies and a survey on public
preparedness.
30 ECTS thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of a Magister Scientiarum degree in civil
engineering
Copyright © 2015 Grétar Már Pálsson
All rights reserved
Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering
School of Engineering and Natural Sciences
University of Iceland
VR II, Hjarðarhaga 2-6
107, Reykjavik
Iceland
Telephone: 525 4600
Bibliographic information:
Grétar Már Pálsson, 2015, Impact on households and critical infrastructures - Two case
studies and a survey on public preparedness, Master’s thesis, Faculty of Civil and
Environmental Engineering, University of Iceland, pp. 76.
Printing: Háskólaprent, Fálkagata 2, 107 Reykjavík
Reykjavik, Iceland, May 2015
Abstract
This thesis studies the impact from electricity failure in Iceland on households and critical
infrastructures. Households and critical infrastructures electricity dependence is discussed
along with a theoretical identification of impacts towards these two subjects from electricity
failure.
Risk Assessment Plans for Iceland, Norway and Sweden are compared. The main focus of
the comparison relates to how the countries focus on electricity, information and
communication technologies and the role of the general public in these plans.
Case studies on two recent electricity failure events in Iceland were conducted. Impacts from
these events were analysed and evaluated. This process enabled comparison between actual
discovered impacts from a real events and those analysed in the beginning of this thesis.
Further, two surveys were conducted. One of them aimed to evaluate the perceived and
actual preparedness of the general public, in Iceland, regarding electricity failure and the
other aimed to evaluate the confidence that stakeholders have in the general public regarding
electricity failure.
Útdráttur
Ritgerð þessi tekur á áhrifum vegna rafmagnsleysis og afleiðingum þeirra á heimili og
mikilvæga innviði á Íslandi. Útskýrt er hvernig heimili og mikilvægir innviðir eru háðir
rafmagni. Einnig er reynt, út frá fræðilegu sjónarmiði, að bera kennsl á afleiðingar og ógnir
sem þessi tvö viðfangsefni kunna að verða fyrir við rafmagnsleysi.
Áhættumöt Íslands, Noregs og Svíþjóðar eru borin saman. Samanburðurinn lítur að því
hvernig löndin taka á rafmagni, fjarskipta og upplýsingakerfum og hlutverki almennings í
þessum mötum.
Tvær tilviksrannsóknir voru framkvæmdar á nýlegum atburðum varðandi rafmagnsleysi á
Íslandi. Áhrif frá þessum atburðum voru greind og metin. Þessar rannsóknir veittu grundvöll
til þess að bera saman áhrif frá fræðilegu sjónarmiði við áhrif sem komu í ljós frá
raunverulegum atburði.
Ennfremur voru tvær kannanir framkvæmdar. Sú fyrri snéri að því að meta skynjaðan og
raunverulegan undirbúning almennings, á Íslandi, gagnvart rafmagnsleysi og sú síðari snéri
að mati hagsmunaaðila gagnvart undirbúningi almennings í rafmagnsleysi.
This thesis is dedicated to my parents, Páll Grétarsson and Svanhildur Jónsdóttir, and
brother, Sindri Már Pálsson, who have supported me during my education.
Preface
Resilience of the general public as well as of critical infrastructure have both become popular
topics in recent years. For a society to be able to function in times of crisis both the public
and critical infrastructure have to be able to cope with the consequences as a whole as well
as individuals. It is the authors opinion that critical infrastructure needs to become more
robust against failure in other infrastructures in order to function. Further, the general public
needs to become more self-reliant and less dependent on these critical infrastructures should
their functionality fail.
xi
Table of Contents
List of Figures ....................................................................................................... xiii
List of Tables ......................................................................................................... xix
Abbreviations ..........................................................................................................xx
Acknowledgements ............................................................................................... xxi
1 Introduction ..........................................................................................................1
2 Research goals and methodology ........................................................................3 2.1 Research goals ..............................................................................................3 2.2 Methodology ................................................................................................3
3 Infrastructure and households ...........................................................................5 3.1 General on infrastructure ..............................................................................5 3.2 Critical infrastructure electricity dependence ...............................................7
3.2.1 ICT ......................................................................................................8
3.2.2 Energy .................................................................................................9 3.2.3 Health care and first responders ........................................................12 3.2.4 Water supply and food ......................................................................14
3.2.5 Transportation ...................................................................................14 3.2.6 Financial systems ..............................................................................15
3.3 Critical infrastructure connectivity .............................................................16 3.3.1 Impact on critical infrastructure from electricity and ICT failure ....18
3.4 Households electricity dependence ............................................................20
3.4.1 The average household in Iceland .....................................................20
3.4.2 Impact on households from electricity and ICT failure ....................22 3.5 Summary ....................................................................................................22
4 National Risk Assessment Plans .......................................................................23 4.1 Iceland ........................................................................................................23
4.1.1 Electricity ..........................................................................................23 4.1.2 ICT ....................................................................................................24 4.1.3 Role of the public ..............................................................................24
4.2 Norway .......................................................................................................24 4.2.1 Electricity ..........................................................................................25 4.2.2 ICT ....................................................................................................25 4.2.3 Role of the public ..............................................................................26
4.3 Sweden .......................................................................................................26
4.3.1 Electricity ..........................................................................................26 4.3.2 ICT ....................................................................................................27
4.3.3 Role of the public ..............................................................................27 4.4 Comparison ................................................................................................27 4.5 Summary ....................................................................................................29
xii
5 Two case studies ................................................................................................ 31 5.1 Brennimelur ............................................................................................... 31
5.1.1 Electricity distribution around Brennimelur .................................... 31 5.1.2 Event description .............................................................................. 32
5.1.3 Media coverage analysis .................................................................. 34 5.1.4 Household and infrastructure impact summary ............................... 35
5.2 The Westfjords ........................................................................................... 37 5.2.1 Westfjords electricity distribution network ...................................... 37 5.2.2 Event description .............................................................................. 39
5.2.3 Media coverage analysis .................................................................. 39 5.2.4 Household and infrastructure impact summary ............................... 42
5.3 Impact evaluation ....................................................................................... 45 5.3.1 Threat evaluation .............................................................................. 45 5.3.2 Infrastructure resilience evaluation .................................................. 46 5.3.3 Household resilience evaluation ....................................................... 48 5.3.4 Comparing to the theoretical impact ................................................ 48
5.4 Results........................................................................................................ 50 5.5 Summary .................................................................................................... 51
6 Analysis of public preparedness ...................................................................... 53 6.1 General on public preparedness ................................................................. 53
6.2 Public preparedness survey ........................................................................ 56
6.2.1 Methodology .................................................................................... 56
6.2.2 Part 1 – Perceived preparedness ....................................................... 56 6.2.3 Part 2 – Actual preparedness ............................................................ 60
6.3 Stakeholder survey ..................................................................................... 66 6.3.1 Methodology .................................................................................... 66 6.3.2 Part 1 – Stakeholders knowledge ..................................................... 66
6.3.3 Part 2 – Stakeholders opinion ........................................................... 68 6.4 Results........................................................................................................ 71
6.4.1 Public preparedness survey .............................................................. 71 6.4.2 Stakeholder survey ........................................................................... 72 6.4.3 Comparing to foreign surveys .......................................................... 73
6.5 Surveys limitations .................................................................................... 73
6.5.1 Public preparedness survey .............................................................. 73
6.5.2 Stakeholder survey ........................................................................... 73 6.6 Summary .................................................................................................... 73
7 Conclusion and discussion ................................................................................ 75
References ............................................................................................................... 77
Appendix A ............................................................................................................. 83
Appendix B ............................................................................................................. 95
Appendix C ........................................................................................................... 101
Appendix D ........................................................................................................... 111
xiii
List of Figures
Figure 3-1: Connection between critical infrastructures. Electric power and
telecommunications appear to play an important role in the function of
these infrastructures. Retrieved from (Robles et al., 2008). ............................. 5
Figure 3-2: Resilience dimensions (TOSE) connected to critical infrastructure.
Retrieved from Bruneau et al. (2003). .............................................................. 6
Figure 3-3: A simplified model of the TETRA-system setup. Based on a figure from
Gunnarsson (2013)............................................................................................ 8
Figure 3-4: TETRA-transmitters connection. Transmitters are connected in a circle
creating redundancy when communication paths are severed. Based on a
figure from Gunnarsson (2013). ....................................................................... 9
Figure 3-5: Energy usage of the general public in Iceland. Based on a figure from
Orkusetur (2011a). .......................................................................................... 10
Figure 3-6: Main hydro power plants in Iceland. Numbers represent each power plant
and the largest ones are specially listed (green dots), retrieved from
Orkustofnun. ................................................................................................... 10
Figure 3-7: Geothermal plants in Iceland. The largest geothermal plants are
Hellisheiði nr. 7, Nesjavellir nr. 4 & Reykjanes nr. 6. ................................... 11
Figure 3-8: Main transmission lines in Iceland. Lines displayed transport electricity
from power plants to substations and further throughout the country.
Retrieved from Landsnet. ............................................................................... 12
Figure 3-9: A part of the national hospital in Reykjavík. .................................................. 13
Figure 3-10: Critical infrastructures interdependencies. Solid lines crossing sectors
and connecting nodes represent internal dependencies. Dashed lines
represent dependencies that exist between different infrastructures
(interdependencies). Retrieved from Pederson et al. (2006). ......................... 16
Figure 3-11: Critical infrastructures interdependencies. Blue lines show how critical
infrastructures depend on each other to function. Retrieved from the
Federal Communication Commission (2011). ................................................ 17
Figure 3-12: Theoretical direct negative impact from electricity failure on other
critical infrastructure; ICT, Water supply and Food, Health care/First
responders, Transportation and Financial systems. ........................................ 18
Figure 3-13: Theoretical direct negative impact from ICT failure on other critical
infrastructures; Energy, Water supply and Food, Health care/First
responders, Transportation and Financial systems. ........................................ 19
xiv
Figure 3-14: Energy consumption in the Nordic countries. The average household is
broken into certain aspects that are dependent on electricity. Based on a
figure from Orkusetur (2011b). ...................................................................... 20
Figure 3-15: Main impact on the general public from electricity and ICT failure. The
impacts are categorised by the following infrastructure; ICT, Energy,
Water supply & Food, Health care/First responders, Transportation and
Financial systems. .......................................................................................... 22
Figure 5-1: The location of Brennimelur, the teal coloured mark, where the power
failure originated. The yellow box on the overview map of Iceland shows
the location of the enlarged figure. ................................................................ 32
Figure 5-2: Salt pollution meter for the Brennimelur area. In normal conditions the
salt pollution meter ranges from 25-50, salty weather from 50 to 100,
heavy salty weather when around 100 and over and very heavy salty
weather when the meter shows 100-200. Retrieved from Landsnet. ............. 33
Figure 5-3: Geographic position of the Westfjords. Retrieved from Almannavarnir. ...... 37
Figure 5-4: The power distribution network in the Westfjords. Retrieved from
Orkubú Vestfjarða. ......................................................................................... 38
Figure 5-5: Infrastructures from the theoretical identification as well as the case
studies............................................................................................................. 48
Figure 5-6: Impacts from the theoretical identification as well as the case studies. ......... 49
Figure 6-1: Question 1: How well or bad do you consider yourself and/or your family
preparedness to be regarding a long duration electricity failure? .................. 56
Figure 6-2: Question 2: Please describe how you and/or your family have prepared
for long duration electricity failure? .............................................................. 57
Figure 6-3: Question 3: If a long duration electricity failure were to happen, do you
consider yourself being able to assist others (for example, people in your
neighbourhood) with the following aspects? The figure shows which
aspects they considered themselves being able to help with. ........................ 58
Figure 6-4: Question 4: For how long of a time period do you consider yourself being
able to help the people in your neighbourhood regarding the following
aspects? .......................................................................................................... 58
Figure 6-5: Question 5: How well or bad do you trust infrastructure (for example
SAR, law enforcement, government, distribution companies, etc.) to deal
with the following crisis? ............................................................................... 59
Figure 6-6: Question 6: Did you know that according to law, the police can demand
people from the ages of 18-65 years old to help authorities during crisis?
........................................................................................................................ 60
xv
Figure 6-7: Question 7: Do you and/or your family have any contingency plans for a
long duration electricity failure? ..................................................................... 60
Figure 6-8: Question 8: Please describe what your contingency plan regarding long
duration electricity failure includes? .............................................................. 61
Figure 6-9: Question 9: Do you and/or your family have any contingency plans for
the following crisis? ........................................................................................ 61
Figure 6-10: Question 10: What of the following is present in your home? Question
11: What of the following do you store in a certain place that you can
access it during crisis? .................................................................................... 62
Figure 6-11: Question 12: How much or little do you have of the following foods? ....... 63
Figure 6-12: Question 13: How long do you consider yourself and/or your family to
be able to live long on the food present in your household? .......................... 63
Figure 6-13: Question 14: Do you have food stored specially to use during crisis? ......... 64
Figure 6-14: Question 15: Do you and/or your family upgrade the specially stored
food supply regularly? (For example, once a year or every other year). ........ 64
Figure 6-15: Question 16: Have you or anyone in your family taken a first aid class,
first responder class or similar courses? ......................................................... 65
Figure 6-16: Question 14: Have you familiarized yourself with the following?............... 65
Figure 6-17: Question 1: What does your job relate to the most? Options where civil
defence (green), electricity distribution, ICT distribution, police,
government agency and other. ........................................................................ 66
Figure 6-18 Question 2: Does your job include any duties that relate to response or
emergency –management that affects the public? .......................................... 67
Figure 6-19: Question 3: If yes, what are your main duties? Answers can be seen in
Appendix CII. ................................................................................................. 67
Figure 6-20: Question 4: Do you have experience from work that relates to an
emergency situation which has occurred from electricity failure? ................. 68
Figure 6-21: Question 5: What do you consider the main faults in electricity and ICT
–distribution systems in Iceland? Answers can be seen in Appendix CII. ..... 68
Figure 6-22: Question 6: How well or bad do you consider infrastructure (for example
government, police, electricity and ICT –distribution systems, SAR, etc.)
in Iceland capable of dealing with the following? The findings are
displayed in percentage (%)............................................................................ 69
xvi
Figure 6-23: Question 7: How well or badly prepared do you consider households
(the general public) for the following scenarios? The findings are
displayed in percentage (%). .......................................................................... 69
Figure 6-24: Question 8: How well or badly do you consider households (the general
public) informed regarding the following aspects? The findings are
displayed in percentage (%). .......................................................................... 70
Figure 6-25: Question 9: Can you make an example regarding what is expected of
the public during times of crisis? (For example duties, preparedness, how
long people have to endure, etc.) Answers can be seen in Appendix CII. ..... 70
Figure 6-26: Summary of findings from part 1 in the public preparedness survey. ......... 71
Figure 6-27: Summary of findings from part 2 in the public preparedness survey. ......... 72
Figure A-1: Region 1 containing Akranes in Iceland. Retrieved from Almannavarnir.
........................................................................................................................ 84
Figure A-2: Region 2 containing Borgarbyggð, Dalabyggð, Hvalfjarðarsveit and
Skorradalsreppur in Iceland. Retrieved from Almannavarnir. ....................... 85
Figure A-3: Region 3 containing Snæfellsnes. Retrieved from Almannavarnir. .............. 85
Figure A-4: Region 4 containing Vestfirði. Retrieved from Almannavarnir.................... 86
Figure A-5: Region 5 containin, Blönduós (town), Húnavatnshrepp, Húnaþing vestra,
Skagabyggð and the municipality Skagaströng. Retrieved from
Almannvarnir. ................................................................................................ 86
Figure A-6: Region 6 containing Akrahreppur and municipality Skagafjörður.
Retrieved from Almannvarnir. ....................................................................... 87
Figure A-7: Region 7 containing Akureyri, Eyjafjarðarsveit, Dalvíkurbyggð,
Fjallabyggð, Grýtubakkahrepp, Hörgársveit and Svalbarðsstrandahrepp.
Retrieved from Almannvarnir. ....................................................................... 88
Figure A-8: Region 8 containing Langanesbyggð, Norðurþing, Skútustaðahrepp,
Svalbarðshrepp, Tjörneshrepp and Þingeyjarsveit. Retrieved from
Almannavarnir. .............................................................................................. 88
Figure A-9: Region 9 containing Borgarfjarðarhrepp, Fljótsdalshérað,
Fljótsdalshrepp, Seyðisfjarðarkaupstað and Vopnafjarðarhrepp.
Retrieved from Almannavarnir. ..................................................................... 89
Figure A-10: Region 10 containing Breiðdalshreppur, Djúpavogshreppur,
Fjarðabyggð and the municipality Hornafjörður. Retreived from
Almannavarnir. .............................................................................................. 90
Figure A-11: Region 11 containing Ásahrepp, Mýrdalshrepp, Rángárþing eystra,
Rangárþing ytra and Skaftárhrepp. Retrieved from Almannavarnir. ............. 90
xvii
Figure A-12: Region 12 containing Vestmannaeyjar. Retreived from Almannavarnir.
........................................................................................................................ 91
Figure A-13: Region 13 containing Bláskógabyggð, Flóahrepp, Grímsnes- and
Grafningshrepp, Hrunamannahrepp, Hveragerðisbæ, Skeiða- og
Gnúpverjahrepp and the municipalities Árborg and Ölfus. Retreived
from Almannavarnir. ...................................................................................... 91
Figure A-14: Region 14 containing Grindavíkurbæ, Reykjanesbæ, Sandgerðisbæ and
the municipalities Garður and Vogar. Retrieved from Almannavarnir. ......... 92
Figure A-15: Region 15 containing Álftanes, Garðabæ, Hafnarfjörð, Kópavog,
Mosfellsbæ, Reykjavík and Seltjarnarnes. Retrieved from
Almannavarnir. ............................................................................................... 92
Figure B-16: Duration of electric down time from start of the incident to 00:00 for
January 10th. ................................................................................................... 97
Figure B-17: Duration of electric down time from 00:00 to 09:27 for January 11th. ....... 97
Figure B-18: Two country parts (Austurland and Vestfirðir) and two energy intensive
industries (Norðurál and Járnblendifélagið) affected by the power failure
during the Brennimelur event. ........................................................................ 98
Figure B-19: Electricity used by different aluminium smelters in Iceland. Retrieved
from Landsnet. ................................................................................................ 99
Figure B-20: Spontaneous events in electricity distribution, power outages (46) and
power failure (14). ........................................................................................ 100
Figure B-21: Mitigation methods, restoring power (65), failing in restoring power
(8), power switches (8) that occurred during the Brennimelur event. .......... 100
Figure D-22: Further analysis on Question 10. Number of respondents and the
number of items they own can be seen on the column chart. ....................... 111
Figure D-23: Further analysis on Question 10. The graph shows the distribution of
equipment ownership for respondents stating they were well prepared for
electricity failure. The average ownership was around 11,4 items which
was around 2 items more than for all respondents. ...................................... 111
Figure D-24: Further analysis on Question 12. The column chart shows the number
of items (this case food categories from question 10) respondents thought
they had in their household. For example the graph shows that around 40
respondents had “very much” of 1 item from the category, around 150
respondents had rather little of 2 items, etc. ................................................. 112
Figure D-25: Further analysis on Question 14. The graph shows how many
percentage of prepared respondents owned emergency supply of food. ...... 112
xviii
Figure D-26: Further analysis on Question 15. The graph shows that every prepared
respondents say they or someone in their family knows first aid. ............... 113
Figure D-27: Further analysis on Question 16. 29% of prepared respondents are
familiar with national contingency plans which is 11% higher than for
the whole group of respondents. .................................................................. 113
Figure D-28: Further analysis on Question 16. 14% of prepared respondents say they
are familiar with regional contingency plans which is very similar to the
whole group of respondents. ........................................................................ 114
xix
List of Tables
Table 3-1: Household equipment considered as primary equipment and its
importance. ..................................................................................................... 21
Table 3-2: Household equipment considered as secondary equipment and its
importance. ..................................................................................................... 21
Table 4-1: Comparison of the National Risk Assessment Plans for Iceland, Norway
and Sweden. The table demonstrates difference between electricity and
ICT, and if the general public has some role to play in large events. ............. 28
Table 4-2: Visual comparison of the Risk Assessment Plans between Iceland,
Norway and Sweden. ...................................................................................... 29
Table 5-1: Impact on infrastructures from the Brennimelur case study. Direct and
possible effect on the general public is also included..................................... 36
Table 5-2: Impact on household from failure in infrastructure from the Westfjords
case study. Further, impact towards individuals from impact on
households is demonstrated. ........................................................................... 43
Table 5-3: Impact on infrastructure from the Westfjords case study. Further, the
effect caused by the impact on infrastructures function is demonstrated. ...... 44
Table 5-4: Threat evaluation from the main impacts discovered from the case studies.
Threat is displayed with colours green, light green, yellow, orange and
red. Green corresponds very low level of threat while red corresponds to
very high levels of threat. ............................................................................... 45
Table 5-5: Resilience evaluation for critical infrastructures. Resilience is displayed
with colours green, light green, yellow, orange and red. Green
corresponds very good resilience while red corresponds to very bad
resilience. ........................................................................................................ 47
Table 5-6: Summary of evaluations. The table shows impacts with the highest level
of threat, least resilient infrastructures and the most crucial aspects that
were lacking regarding households. ............................................................... 50
Table 5-7: Main findings from comparing case studies to the theoretical
identification. .................................................................................................. 50
Table 6-1: Findings on public preparedness from the 2004 King County Survey.
Retrieved from Butler and Safsak (2004). ...................................................... 54
Table C-1 Answers to question 3, stakeholder survey. ................................................... 109
Table C-2 Answers to question 5, stakeholder survey. ................................................... 109
Table C-3: Answers to Question 9, stakeholder survey. ................................................. 110
xx
Abbreviations
ICT: Information and Communication Technologies
SAR: Search and Rescue
TETRA: Terrestrial Trunked Radio
NSR: Neyðarsamstarf raforkukerfisins (Electricity services, emergency cooperation)
GNSS: Global Navigation Satellite System
ES: Emergency services
xxi
Acknowledgements
First and foremost I would like to thank my advisor Björn Karlsson for his limitless help and
enthusiasm and my co-advisor Böðvar Tómasson for his assistance and guidance during the
work of this thesis.
I would then like to thank the Social Science department of the University of Iceland for
their help in making and distributing the survey that was conducted.
Special thanks to Páll Grétarsson and Gerður Guðmundsdóttir for proofreading this thesis as
well as Mannvirkjastofnun for economic contribution for making this thesis.
In closing I would like to thank my nearest family; father, Páll Grétarsson, and mother,
Svanhildur Jónsdóttir, brother, Sindri Már Pálsson, and his wife, Erna Ágústsdóttir, and my
girlfriend Gerður Guðmundsdóttur for their patient, love and support during the making of
this thesis.
1
1 Introduction
Electricity and communications are some of the fundamental aspects of modern societies.
Ever since the beginning of the 20th century electricity has increasingly become a significant
part of everyday life for people in Iceland. From a few lightbulbs in households and on the
streets, giving life to the industrial revolution (Gunnarsson, 1995), to becoming the most
important factor for daily activities of people and businesses in terms of communications
and general operation. The past two decades communication and flow of information has
increased drastically. People are constantly connected to each other and have a continuous
stream of information which includes anything from general information regarding daily
activities to government warnings on natural disasters or devastating weather conditions.
There is no denying that the general public has become increasingly dependent on electricity
in their daily lives. People rely on numerous household essentials, from refrigerators and
washing machines to televisions and mobile phones. In Iceland the electric power usage of
the general public increased from around 400 GWh in 1966 to 2,200 GWh in 2003 while at
the same time the population increased from around 194000 to 288000 inhabitants which is
an increase in power usage of around 5.5 MWh per capita.
In the last two decades communications have become a large factor of everyday life for the
general public. The internet has brought people closer together keeping them in constant
communication with each other and informed regarding events and crisis. Regarding
communications many risks can be considered; the general user depends on his smartphone
to work throughout the day, businesses rely constantly on internet access and communication
via email etc. Large companies and official authorities, such as police and rescue services,
depend on emergency communication methods such as TETRA.
Communication breakdown can affect people differently depending on their daily habits or
where they live. If people living in rural areas were to lose all communications they would
probably be worse off than those living in urban areas. Distance from emergency services
while being unable to call for aid might have more significant effect on those living rural
areas. This is not an unlikely situation in Iceland since many people live in remote areas
around the country.
The purpose of this thesis is inspired from the ideology that non-functioning infrastructure,
especially during times of crisis, requires a lot of manpower and aid from other
infrastructures in order to be repaired or to maintain its function. In these cases the resilience
of the general public walk hand in hand with the capability of a society to function. For this
reason the best thing for modern societies is to enable people as well as critical
infrastructures to become as independent as possible and to inspire them to help themselves,
thus enhancing public preparedness and infrastructure resilience.
2
3
2 Research goals and methodology
In this chapter the research goals and the methodology for this thesis are discussed.
2.1 Research goals
The goal of this thesis is twofold. On one hand impact from failure in electricity and ICT
infrastructure, both in general as well as for 2 different events occurring in Iceland, will be
researched. The impact will relate to other critical infrastructures and households. On the
other hand an attempt will be made to evaluate the public preparedness in Iceland with
respect to failures in electricity and ICT infrastructure. Further Risk Assessment Plans will
be analysed considering the previously mentioned topics.
2.2 Methodology
The main focus of this thesis can be described in four parts:
the importance of electricity and ICT infrastructure will be discussed and analysed
in relation to other critical infrastructures and households;
National Risk Assessment Plans for three countries will be compared;
two case studies, on electricity failure, will be analysed; and
an investigation of public preparedness will be performed supported by two
surveys.
The importance of critical infrastructure in relation to each other as well as to the general
public will be discussed and analysed. The goal is to determine the impact towards critical
infrastructures and households should electricity failure occur. This will be accomplished
through a description of critical infrastructure in general, focusing on how they are
connected, to each other, and dependent on electricity. An attempt will be made to identify
impact on critical infrastructures in Iceland directly from electricity failure as well as directly
from ICT failure. Further, electricity based equipment in an average household will be
analysed. Both analyses of infrastructure and households will contribute to a theoretical
impact identification. The impact identification will focus on direct impact from electricity
and ICT failure towards critical infrastructures on one hand and towards households (the
general public) on the other.
The comparison of National Risk Assessment Plans will include Iceland, Norway and
Sweden. An attempt will be made to evaluate the difference in how the countries approach
risk from electric failure and ICT breakdown. Further, a discussion is presented on how the
countries consider the role, if any, of the general public in hazardous events. This comparison
will hopefully give an idea of strength and weaknesses of existing assessments and enhance
future assessments.
The case studies focus on two electricity failure events that occurred in Iceland, one in the
beginning of 2012 and the other at the end of 2012. The events are different from one another
4
regarding duration of electricity failure and the area affected by it. Robles et al. claim that
“threats to critical infrastructures can be classified into 3 categories, natural threats, human-
caused, and accidental or technical” (Robles et al., 2008). However, the focus of these case
studies will be to evaluate what impact power outages have on other critical infrastructures
and households. Impact analysis for the two case studies will be based on media coverage
for the two events which includes around 200 articles. Around 50 articles were reviewed for
the Brennimelur case study and around 150 for the Westfjords case study. The difference in
article quantity is mostly due to the difference in duration of each event. The articles were
gathered with the help of Fjölmiðlavaktin, who specialize in gathering articles. The articles
can be categorized into three groups; web based media, newspaper articles and live news
coverage. An attempt will be made to point out negative impact from electricity failure on
households as well as critical infrastructure and how the importance of other infrastructure
increases when some of them lack function. Conducting these case studies can give a clear
view of what actual threats entail.
Two surveys will be conducted. Firstly a public preparedness survey will be conducted to
evaluate the difference between perceived and actual preparedness of the general public.
Distribution of the survey will be internet based and sent out to a random group of around
1200 individuals. The participants will be reached out to with the help of the Social Science
Department of the University of Iceland. The findings from the theoretical impact
identification as well as impact identification from the case studies will contribute to the
structure of the survey. Previously conducted surveys in other countries will contribute to
the construction as well. Secondly a stakeholder survey will be conducted to evaluate
thoughts of government agencies, Search and Rescue, distribution companies, etc. regarding
public preparedness as well as their concerns on electricity and ICT infrastructure. The
findings from the surveys will hopefully give an overview of public preparedness in Iceland.
5
3 Infrastructure and households
The aim of Chapter 3 can be described with the following subjects:
general description of connections between infrastructures and impact towards
them from insufficient electricity supply;
description and analysis of critical infrastructure and the average household in
Iceland in relation to electricity dependence; and
an impact identification on critical infrastructure and households in relation to
failures in electricity and ICT infrastructure.
The purpose of this chapter is to identify the impact on infrastructures and household in
relation to electricity failure from a theoretical standpoint. Findings from this chapter will
then be used: as a comparison for impacts included in the National Risk Assessment Plans,
as a comparison for actual impacts discovered in the case studies, and as a contribute to the
construction of the surveys.
3.1 General on infrastructure
According to The American Heritage Dictionary the term “infrastructure” is defined as:
“The basic facilities, services, and installations needed for the functioning of a
community or society, such as transportation and communications systems, water and
power lines, and public institutions including schools, post offices and prisons”
(Harcourt, 2014).
Insufficient function of one critical infrastructure can have a severe consequence on other
critical infrastructures. Robles et al. (2008) claim that “if the transportation infrastructure
will be damaged, other infrastructure like postal and shipping, emergency services and other
infrastructures will also be affected”. Robles et al. (2008) linked critical infrastructure
together as seen in Figure 3-1.
Figure 3-1: Connection between critical infrastructures. Electric power and telecommunications appear to
play an important role in the function of these infrastructures. Retrieved from (Robles et al., 2008).
6
Figure 3-1 clearly demonstrates critical infrastructure dependence on electricity and ICT
infrastructure. Although the statement quoted above from Robles et al. concerns
transportation infrastructure, the same applies for other critical infrastructures. Emergency
services equipped with emergency power would not suffer directly from failure in electricity
infrastructure. However, the emergency services still require ICT systems which depend
directly on electricity in order to function properly. This concludes that the resilience of
emergency response units walks hand in hand with the resilience of electricity.
Bruneau et al. (2003) focused on a framework to assess and enhance the seismic resilience
of communities from earthquakes. They point out that the resilience of both physical and
social systems can be looked at as four dimensions that are linked together. These
dimensions consist of a technical dimension of resilience that refers to the ability of physical
systems to perform, an organizational dimension of resilience that refers to organizations
capacity to manage critical facilities, a social dimension that consists of measures designed
to reduce negative impact from negative consequences on communities when critical
services are lost, and an economic dimension that focuses on direct and indirect economic
losses. Bruneau et al. (2003) named these dimensions TOSE , or Technical-, Organizational-
, Social- and Economic dimension, and linked them to critical infrastructures as seen in
Figure 3-2.
Figure 3-2: Resilience dimensions (TOSE) connected to critical infrastructure. Retrieved from Bruneau et al.
(2003).
Figure 3-2 demonstrates how the technical and organizational dimensions relate to reacting
to failure in each infrastructure and maintaining their performance. However, the social and
economic dimensions relate to social and economic impact towards a community.
Studies have been conducted regarding impact from electricity failure on critical
infrastructures and the general public. Beatty et al. (2006) investigated the Northeast
blackout of August 2003 which resulted in power failure in all five New York City boroughs
7
and lasted for 52 hours the longest. They interviewed people who experienced the blackout
and focused on health effect from the event. They found that during the blackout four out of
75 hospitals in the city were temporarily without electricity despite having emergency
generators. A 24-hour emergency mental health referral service maintained operation.
However, it had to be contacted through the telephone number that was usually devoted to
faxing. This was caused by failure in the digital phone system. Other communication
troubles occurred. As a result DOHMH (Department of Health and Mental Hygiene)
employees were unable to call the employee centre to acquire information regarding if, when
and where they should report for work.
Another study covering the same event was conducted, focusing on change in mortality rate
during the blackout. Anderson and Bell (2011) found, according to hospital reports, that total
mortality rate rose 28% during the blackout resulting in approximately 90 excess deaths. All
age groups were affected, however the age group of 65-74 seemed to be most susceptible.
The study showed clearly the negative impact that electricity failure can have on health care
infrastructure.
Following the New York City blackout a report was conducted pointing out impacts and
issues regarding the event. The report included emergency response, communications,
transportation and public health, safety and preparedness. Emergency response findings
demonstrated inconsistent command and coordination between command centres, lack of
emergency dispatch efficiency etc. Faults in communications included loss of service at
Verizon central office, overload of the cellular network following the emergency, overload
in 911 call volume etc. Troubles in transportation included widespread transportation
outages resulting in blockages and complete loss of subways systems, lack of traffic signals
at intersections etc. (Alper & Kupferman, 2003).
3.2 Critical infrastructure electricity dependence
In this section critical infrastructure dependence on electricity will be analysed. Including
those being of greatest value regarding a functional society and public safety. Critical
infrastructures consist of many systems, agencies and services and have over the last decades
become increasingly dependent on electricity in order to function. The following sections
will describe the infrastructures in Iceland that are considered critical, these infrastructures
are:
ICT – Information and Communication Technology;
energy production and supply;
health care and first responders;
water supply and food;
transportation; and
financial systems.
8
3.2.1 ICT
ICT or Information and Communication Technologies represents a variety of different
systems. Phone, internet and radio networks fall under the ICT systems as well as direct
communication networks for other infrastructures. All parts of the country, which are
inhabited, have connections to these systems. However, some parts are more fragile than
others. Cell phone coverage in remote areas can be very limited. All of these systems depend
on electricity to function which makes them vulnerable. Cell and smart phone use has
increased significantly over the past two decades while normal line phones are used less than
before (Þ. Jónasson, 2015). Iceland depends on submarine cables connected to Europe and
America for internet usage. The cell phone network depends on transmitters in order to
function. These transmitters require a constant source of electricity to function and are
equipped with emergency batteries, which normally last around 24 hours (J. Á. Sigurjónsson,
2015). Considerably the most robust system in the ICT category is the landline or phones
which draw their power directly from the phone line. The landline also depends on constant
source of electricity, however, the operation stations are equipped with oil based backup
generators (Þ. Jónasson, 2015).
TETRA-system
The TETRA system is owned by Öryggisfjarskipti ehf. and operated by Neyðarlínan (J. Á.
Sigurjónsson, 2015). The majority of its users consists of first responders. Other parties that
are dependent on the TETRA-communication are large industries, etc. The system consists
out of a central hub, located in Skógarhlíð 14 Reykjavík, and 157 TETRA-transmitters (BTS,
Base Transceiver System) located across the country. The BTS’s are located in their own
facilities or facilities owned by other companies (Gunnarsson, 2013).
Figure 3-3: A simplified model of the TETRA-system setup. Based on a figure from Gunnarsson (2013).
Figure 3-3 shows a simple model of a TETRA system. Two different telecommunication
paths transport communication between the TETRA-central hub and the telecommunication
sites that host the TETRA-transmitters. These sites contain emergency power for 48 hours
in general, however, some sites have only 24 hours (Gunnarsson, 2013).
9
Figure 3-4: TETRA-transmitters connection. Transmitters are connected in a circle creating redundancy
when communication paths are severed. Based on a figure from Gunnarsson (2013).
Figure 3-4 shows how TETRA-transmitters are connected forming a circle. With this setup
the transmitters have a redundancy when one communication path fails. In case of failure
between transmitters 4 and 5 it would result in transmitters 1-4 drawing their power from
path A and transmitters 5 and 6 drawing their power from path B. In normal conditions all
of the transmitters would draw their power from path A (Gunnarsson, 2013).
The TETRA-system is not without flaws. The system is dependent on electricity making it
vulnerable when faced with power failure. The central hub for the network is equipped with
a backup power generator that maintains its function of the central system until it runs out
of oil. The TETRA-system is dependent on telecommunication sites from other companies
that have emergency power of 24 hours. These sites are not defined as safety communication
sites that make certain parts of the system weaker. They are therefore less resilient than
standards made by TETRA and most of them do not have any backup that lasts as long as
equipment operated by TETRA (J. Á. Sigurjónsson, 2015).
3.2.2 Energy
Energy consumption in Iceland is one of the highest in the world when use per capita is
considered. Around 20% of the energy used is imported and around 80% is domestic
renewable energy. The consumption can be explained by the amount of energy intensive
industries such as aluminium smelters. However, in Iceland, the fishing industry and the
general user consume a lot of energy compared to other countries. Figure 3-5 shows the
energy consumption for the general user in Iceland (Orkusetur, 2011a). The consumption is
separated into electric and geothermal energy, produced in Iceland, and oil.
10
Figure 3-5: Energy usage of the general public in Iceland. Based on a figure from Orkusetur (2011a).
Electricity power sources in Iceland
In Iceland the main source of power is hydropower and geothermal power. In Iceland 99%
of all electric energy is produced through renewable energy sources (Landsvirkjun, 2014).
Around 73% of the production is hydropower, 27% is geothermal power and only 0.01%
comes from diesel based generators (Íslandsbanki, 2012).
Iceland has nearly 100 hydro power plants (Figure 3-6). The largest ones ranging from 48 to
690 MW (Orkustofnun, 2013a). Dams in hydro power plants serve as energy storage making
them dependent on precipitation. Threats towards dams also include natural disasters and
sabotage which could affect Iceland’s energy supply drastically.
Figure 3-6: Main hydro power plants in Iceland. Numbers represent each power plant and the largest ones
are specially listed (green dots), retrieved from Orkustofnun.
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge cuts through Iceland making it part of two tectonic plates. The
unique position of the country enables production of electricity from geothermal power
plants. The largest geothermal plants in Iceland are Hellisheiðarvirkjun, Nesjavallavirkjun
and Reykjanesvirkjun (Figure 3-7).
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Electricity [900 GWh] Geothermal energy [3100 GWh] Oil [1750 GWh]
Energy consumption in Iceland
Installed capacity in MW
11
Figure 3-7: Geothermal plants in Iceland. The largest geothermal plants are Hellisheiði nr. 7, Nesjavellir nr.
4 & Reykjanes nr. 6.
Three companies in Iceland produce 97% of all the electric energy for the country. The
largest one, Landsvirkjun, produces 71% and relies mostly on hydro power plants. Second
largest is Orkuveita Reykjavíkur with 19% of production and the third is HS Orka with 7%,
which focus mostly on geothermal energy plants. There are few other producers in the
country including Orkusalan (1.5%) and Orkubú Vestfjarða (0.5%) (Orkustofnun, 2013b).
Electricity distribution network in Iceland
Iceland is mostly inhabited near coastal areas leaving the centre of the country, the highlands,
uninhabited. This is one of the reasons that the electric distribution network in Iceland circles
the country rather than crossing it. Figure 3-8 shows the main distribution network in
Iceland, these lines are operated fully or in part by Landsnet. Distribution lines, which reach
the general consumer and are not included in the figure, are owned and operated by smaller
energy companies.
Electricity production
GWh/year.
12
Figure 3-8: Main transmission lines in Iceland. Lines displayed transport electricity from power plants to
substations and further throughout the country. Retrieved from Landsnet.
“The main electricity distribution network in Iceland covers all 66 kV transmission lines and
higher and also a few 33 kV lines… Furthermore the network covers all the main substations
in Iceland” (Landsnet, 2013). As seen in Figure 3-8, transmission lines in the distribution
network are in four different voltage groups, 220 kV (green), 132 kV (red), 66 kV (blue) and
33 kV (yellow). The green lines are mainly transmission lines between power plants, energy-
intensive industries and substations which then transfer electricity to the red lines. The red
lines distribute electricity to different regions of the country where it is transferred to the
blue lines. The blue lines distribute the electricity within a certain part or region of the
country. The yellow lines have the same purpose as the blue lines except they have lower
voltage. The distribution network towards the capital area is fairly strong considering the
number of transmission lines that travel towards it from hydro and geothermal plants (Figure
3-8). However, regions solely connected to the red line are much more vulnerable to failure
in the distribution network since the red line is only a single line with no backup.
Nevertheless, geothermal plants in the North and a hydro power plant in the east do
contribute if distribution from the main sources is reduced. Threats towards transmission
lines in Iceland include storms, salinity, sabotage, etc.
3.2.3 Health care and first responders
Health care
The health care system in Iceland mainly consists of hospitals and health care centres. There
is one main hospital along with a few clinics and healthcare centres servicing the capital area
which also serve the rest of the country in terms of specialized procedures. There are also
four hospitals servicing other parts of the country located in; Akranes, Ísafjörður, Akureyri
and Neskaupstaður. Health care centres are operated in most of the larger towns around the
Transmission lines
13
country. Emergency rooms are located in the hospitals mentioned above and open 24/7.
Further, nursing homes for the elderly are located in many places around the country.
Figure 3-9: A part of the national hospital in Reykjavík.
Most of lifesaving operations in Iceland have emergency power of some sort that can service
them for a short period of time (Almannavarnadeild, 2011). On a daily basis hospitals make
complex operations with all sorts of electric equipment, patients are monitored through
electric devices and some of them need electric equipment to stay alive while in a hospital.
Thus the health care system is highly dependent on electricity to function properly.
First responders
Emergency response units are located in larger towns in Iceland. They are dispatched from
the emergency call centre, Neyðarlínan, located in Skógarhlíð 14 Reykjavík. The call centre
handles all emergency calls from the public around the country and dispatches fire
departments, police, Search and Rescue, ambulances and the Coast Guard.
In Iceland there are nine police jurisdictions in total. According to changes in 2014, on the
Police Act of 1996, the Parliament agreed to reduce the jurisdictions from 15 to 9, with a
chief of police in each of them (Alþingi, 2014). Apart from general and daily duties of law
enforcement the police overseas tasks regarding civil protection on behalf of the Minister of
the Interior. Further, the police is the highest form of authority regarding search and rescue
mission on land. The Police Commissioner runs a department called the Civil Protection
Defence (Almannavarnir) in Iceland, from this point referred to as CPD or civil defence. The
CPD is operated according to law no. 82/2008. The goal of the civil defence in Iceland is to
prepare, plan and perform measures which aim to prevent and reduce, as much as possible,
negative impacts such as injury or health risk towards the general public. Furthermore, to
reduce and prevent negative impact from natural disasters, people, plague, war or other
reasons (Alþingi, 2008).
14
Other units classified as first responders are Search and Rescue units in Iceland, from this
point referred to as SAR. The SAR in Iceland consists of approximately 5000 volunteers
around the country to service regarding storms, search of people and complicated rescue
missions etc. These SAR units are very important and a vital part of rescue operations in
Iceland.
Law enforcement as well as other first responders are highly dependent on electricity. First
and foremost the majority of communication between units and headquarters are through
emergency telecommunication. Coordination of these units is therefore highly dependent on
communications. Further, the general public needs to be able to communicate with them.
Therefore, in case of a blackout, it is not only important that this infrastructure is secured in
terms of electricity and communications but also the ability of the general public to
communicate to them in case of emergency.
3.2.4 Water supply and food
Water supply
Iceland holds great quantities of fresh water used by the general public. Cold and hot water
is distributed through supply lines all over the country from local reservoirs or ground water
areas. The cold water is used both for human consumption as well as other use such as
washing, showering, etc. The hot geothermal water is used for other daily activities such as
showering and house heating. Though some households depend directly on electricity for
house heating, the vast majority of the households are heated with geothermal water. The
water supply system is dependent on pumps in order to distribute the water throughout the
system. These pumps are run on electricity making water distribution vulnerable to power
failure.
Food
Food safety and security is most often viewed from a health perspective and consumer safety.
However, for this analysis food security relates to enough food supply where both storage
and distribution of food is relatively dependent on electricity. A part from goods that can be
stored at room temperature for significant amount of time, fresh food and food that depends
on cold storage are vulnerable. This applies to households, retailers as well as suppliers.
3.2.5 Transportation
Transportation, on land, air and sea, is a part of critical infrastructure for modern societies.
When considering threats towards transportation they can vary greatly between different
types of transportation.
Land transportation
In Iceland land transportation mainly consists of vehicles and other road transportations
since no trains are operated in Iceland. Risk factors for traffic safety can vary between
different parts of the country and season. Factors include narrow bridges, gusts from
mountains, too few alternate routes, dangerous parts of the road, natural disasters, etc.
(Almannavarnadeild, 2011). Considering power failures regarding land transportation the
impact on roads and highways in rural areas could be viewed as minimum since these roads
do not depend on traffic lights nor are there any road lights to improve visibility. However,
road tunnels are dependent on electricity to maintain operation. Towns, especially the capital
15
area, where traffic can be heavy at a certain time of day, can suffer from the loss of electricity
due to possible traffic light malfunction. The lack of traffic lights in urban areas can result
in a very slow traffic and even car accidents, risking the health and safety of the general
public. The Road Administration in Iceland operates a website, www.vegagerdin.is, where
they monitor road conditions all over the country. The general public can visit the site in
order to decide which road to take or if they should drive at all. These systems are dependent
both on electricity and telecommunications to function properly making them vulnerable in
case of power failure.
Air transportation
Air transportation in Iceland has increased significantly in the past decade. International air
carriers in Iceland consist mainly of two companies, Icelandair and WOW air, and domestic
flights are primarily through Flugfélag Íslands and a few other smaller air carriers. The
largest and most specialized part of the healthcare system in Iceland is located in the capital
area. Since Iceland is sparsely populated emergency ambulance airlines are highly relied on
by health care providers in rural areas. Ambulance flights in Iceland are mainly operated by
one airline, Mýflug air, which performs nearly all ambulance flights in Iceland. Mýflug
receives between 400-500 ambulance flight requests every year, most of them domestic
(Mýflug, 2010). The Icelandic Coast Guard also performs ambulance flights with airplanes
and helicopters, however their main focus is to monitor the sea around Iceland; fishing
control, pollution control, sea ice control and other research. They also operate in search and
rescue missions where SAR units and the police Special Forces need transport. Air traffic is
highly dependent on electricity as well as ICT. Insufficient electricity supply for airports can
lead to total breakdown of management as well as hazardous landing conditions when
ground landing lights lack electricity. Breakdown in ICT could cripple air traffic control as
well as aircraft communication and navigation systems would malfunction.
Sea transportation
Iceland is highly dependent on sea operation, both as industry and transportation of food and
other goods. Electricity failure could not be considered as critical when it comes to sea
transport, however, failure in ICT could have drastic effect. This failure could result in ships
being unable to call for aid and failure in their navigation systems.
3.2.6 Financial systems
Iceland’s financial system is highly dependent on electricity and ICT, both for international
trading as well as everyday transactions from the general public. In Iceland the vast majority
of the population relies on debit or credit cards in order to purchase items. Failure in
electricity and ICT systems would affect every individual or company and could lead to
people being unable to purchase items as well as increased management in stores would be
required in order to control cash flow.
16
3.3 Critical infrastructure connectivity
In this section electricity dependence of critical infrastructure will be considered. This
enhances our ability to determine threats that may occur towards critical infrastructures
during electricity and ICT failure.
Understanding of interdependency between critical infrastructures is crucial in the case of
hazardous events. Pederson et al. (2006) argue that “In chaotic environments such as
emergency response to catastrophic events, decision makers should understand the dynamics
underlying the infrastructures. Failure to understand those dynamics will result in ineffective
response and poor coordination between decision makers and agencies responsible for
rescue, recovery, and restoration”. Further, they made a simple schematic to demonstrate the
complexity of interdependency between critical infrastructures, see Figure 3-10. They
demonstrate the importance of electricity and ICT for other critical infrastructures to
function. In Figure 3-10 the solid lines crossing sectors and connecting nodes, represent
internal dependencies, while the dashed lines represent dependencies that also exist between
different infrastructures. According to the figure, water and ICT infrastructure are
interdependent on electricity through sewer pumping and telephone services respectively.
Further the interdependence between ICT infrastructures to emergency services is
demonstrated making emergency services dependent on electricity. Although the figure
demonstrates these connections it could be argued that the interdependencies work both
ways. By looking at a scenario where energy supply would fail in a remote area, methods of
transportation become crucial in order to resolve the situation. Further, energy distribution
and manufacturing is dependent on ICT systems for monitoring, operating etc.
Figure 3-10: Critical infrastructures interdependencies. Solid lines crossing sectors and connecting nodes
represent internal dependencies. Dashed lines represent dependencies that exist between different
infrastructures (interdependencies). Retrieved from Pederson et al. (2006).
17
The Federal Communications Commission (The FCC) describes interdependencies between
infrastructures in greater detail with a similar approach referring to a diagram made by the
National of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, see Figure 2-11. They show that „there is a
great deal of interdependency between the Communication Sector and a number of the
functionaries within the utility community” (FCC, 2011). Where utility refers to electric
power, oil, gas and water. They further point out that the dominant dependency for the
Communication Sector is electricity… weather it is a switching centre, radio relay site, cell
site, other remote site, or any other facility (FCC, 2011).
Figure 3-11: Critical infrastructures interdependencies. Blue lines show how critical infrastructures depend
on each other to function. Retrieved from the Federal Communication Commission (2011).
As Figures 3-10 and 3-11 show, the interdependencies between critical infrastructures are
highly complex. Understanding these connections is crucial in evaluating the impact caused
by one or more of them malfunctioning. Therefore key personnel as well as the general
public need to be aware of these connections. The key aspect is to realise that infrastructures
such as first responders rely on ICT in order to coordinate and communicate. ICT is
dependent on electricity thus first responders are dependent on electricity. Though
emergency services depend on electricity through communications it does not neglect the
fact that they are not also directly dependent on electricity. Both key personnel and the
general public have to be able to function during electricity failure, with alternative heating
sources or cooking methods, and ICT failure, with emergency communications or old
fashion hardwired phones that draws power directly from the telephone line.
18
3.3.1 Impact on critical infrastructure from electricity and ICT failure
A deep understanding of the consequences from electric and ICT failure on other
infrastructures is highly important. In Figures 3-12 and 3-13 an attempt will be made to
account for impacts, from electricity failure and communication breakdown respectively, on
other infrastructures. Impacts focused on in this section will not include causes of electricity
or ICT failures such as sabotage, bad weather etc. Rather the assumption is made that these
system have failed and no longer contribute to the other infrastructures.
Figure 3-12: Theoretical direct negative impact from electricity failure on other critical infrastructure; ICT,
Water supply and Food, Health care/First responders, Transportation and Financial systems.
As Figure 3-12 demonstrates the impacts from electricity failure on critical infrastructure are
widespread. Though the figure does not include every aspect of failure that would appear in
these infrastructures, it demonstrates the importance of a functioning electricity distribution
in a modern society.
ICT
Wireless communication
transmitters become
dependent on emergency
power in order to function .
Normally backup lasts 24
hours and emergency
communication transmitters 48
hours.
Landline will work as long as phone stations are operated
through emergency
power.
Becomes dependent on
emergency power.
Water supply and Food
Malfunction in water pumps.
Distribution of hot and cold
water insufficient or
non at all.
Becomes dependent on
emergency power.
Fresh food storage
becomes difficult and depent on
other form of power supply.
Health care / First responders
Advanced difficulties in patient care.
Damage to laboratory samples,
vacines, blood, etc.
Becomes dependent on
emergency power.
Transportation
No traffic lights on streets and in tunnels nor landing lights for air traffic.
No ventilation nor lights in
road tunnels.
Urban areas may cause
difficulties for emergency
services response time.
Sea traffic suffers from no
lights on the mainland.
Becomes dependent on
emergency power.
Financial systems
Payment systems, debet
& credit, will likely not work.
Becomes dependent on
emergency power.
19
Figure 3-13: Theoretical direct negative impact from ICT failure on other critical infrastructures; Energy,
Water supply and Food, Health care/First responders, Transportation and Financial systems.
Impact from ICT failure on critical infrastructure (Figure 3-13) seems to be less serious than
from electric failure (Figure 3-12). However, scenarios where impacts from electricity and
ICT failure collide the threat towards the general public and the importance of keeping
critical infrastructure functioning increases drastically.
Energy
Monitoring and management
becomes difficult.
Identification of breakdown
becomes difficult.
Repairs become difficult.
Water supply and food
Monitoring and management
becomes difficult.
Health care / First responders
Hard to call people in to
work.
Coordination in hospitals and
for first responders becomes difficult.
Transportation
Lacking road servailance, (the Road
Administration).
High risk for air traffic.
Sea and air traffic suffer
from failure in navigation
systems etc.
Financial systems
Payment system, debet & credit, will
likely not work.
20
3.4 Households electricity dependence
In this section electricity dependent equipment in an average modern household will be
identified. The purpose is to analyse which impacts towards households could possibly
appear during electricity and ICT failure and to rationalise which of them are most important.
3.4.1 The average household in Iceland
According to Orkusetur (2011b) the average household in Iceland consumes around 5 MWh
of electric energy apart from house heating. They point out that studies on energy
consumption for an average household in the Nordic countries suggest that the consumption
can be broken down into certain aspects (Figure 3-14).
Figure 3-14: Energy consumption in the Nordic countries. The average household is broken into certain
aspects that are dependent on electricity. Based on a figure from Orkusetur (2011b).
Every aspect listed in Figure 3-14 depends directly on electricity from the household in order
to function. However, households are dependent on more than just internal equipment to
function properly. Being able to heat a household, make a phone call, turn on a TV, etc.
relies on functional infrastructures or so called utilities. In their studies Karaca et al. (2013)
included water, electricity, gas, information, waste and sewage removal in their utility
category. Apart from gas, Iceland dependence on these utilities is very high. Some
government related programs encourage citizens to learn how to shut off their utilities
(Ready, 2013b). The utilities are extremely dependent on electricity in order to function. For
example, washing clothes requires the washing machine to receive electricity from the house
and also to receive water from the water distribution system. Failure in the electricity
infrastructure could eventually lead to the malfunction of these utilities as well as in all
aspects mentioned in Figure 3-14.
In this section an attempt will be made to categorise this equipment into primary and
secondary equipment and its importance for households. The primary equipment covers
equipment which is dependent on a household’s electricity to function such as lights,
washing machine, etc. (Table 3-1). The secondary equipment covers equipment or utilities
which require external functionality such as water distribution, phones, etc. (Table 3-2).
7%
20%
20%
20%
17%
16%
Energy consumption in Nordic countries
Doing the dishes
Washing and drying
Food storage
Lighting
Other electronics
Cooking
21
Table 3-1: Household equipment considered as primary equipment and its importance.
Primary Not important Important Very important
Cell/smartphones X
Computer X
Dish washer X
Dryer X
Electric cars X
Freezer X
Internet X
Lights X
Radio X
Refrigerator X
Security alarm X
Stove X
Telephone X
Television X
Vacuum cleaner X
Washing machine X
As seen in Table 3-1, various equipment is present in households that make up for everyday
living and is dependent on functioning electricity. Some of them are considered more
important than others. The equipment that was considered most important was mostly related
to ICT. This evaluation is based on the importance of information distribution during times
of crisis and the importance of the general public to be able to reach out to emergency
services in case of emergency.
Table 3-2: Household equipment considered as secondary equipment and its importance.
Secondary Not important Important Very important
Water supply/house
heating
X
Drainage X
Internet X
Telephone X
Cell/smartphones X
Dish washer / washing
machine
X
Table 3-2 covers equipment that is dependent on more than power from the household to
function. The table includes equipment in relation to water distribution and ICT
infrastructure. Every item, except the dish washer, is considered very important since water
distribution and ICT have a significant part to play for human survival during times of crisis.
22
3.4.2 Impact on households from electricity and ICT failure
In this section an attempt will be made to point out how failure in electricity and ICT
infrastructure effects households. Figure 3-14 demonstrates the possible impacts that were
considered in relation to each critical infrastructure after electricity failure occurs.
Figure 3-15: Main impact on the general public from electricity and ICT failure. The impacts are
categorised by the following infrastructure; ICT, Energy, Water supply & Food, Health care/First
responders, Transportation and Financial systems.
Figure 3-14 demonstrates that failure caused by electricity and ICT results in households
being effected by every critical infrastructure. Though the level of threat from these impacts
varies, it is very important that authorities, infrastructure personnel as well as the general
public are aware of these consequences in order to reduce the negative impact when crisis
occur.
3.5 Summary
In this chapter the functionality between critical infrastructures was discovered to be highly
complex. A deep understanding of these systems is crucial to reveal impacts, from non-
functioning infrastructures, on households and other critical infrastructures. Further, it is
important for key personnel as well as the general public to understand this relationship by
being aware of the consequences that they may face during failure of electricity and ICT and
managing them best to their abilities. In this chapter the impact identification revealed that
each critical infrastructure suffers when electricity or ICT fails. A variety of impacts can
occur leading to different levels of threat. For example being unable to use a credit card to
purchase items is less harmful than a family losing the ability to heat up their house. The
impact identification for households demonstrated that failure caused by electricity and ICT
results in households being effected by every critical infrastructure. The impact
identification does not substitute for expert opinion regarding each infrastructure and should
be investigated further both individually and in relation to one another.
ICT
• Information might not reach the public.
• The public can't contact their loved ones. Might result in panic.
• The public becomes dependent on emergency communications.
Energy -electricity
•No househeating for small percent of the country.
•No lighting.
• The public becomes dependent on other forms of energy.
Water supply & food
•No househeating for majority of the country. Possible shortage of cold water.
•General hygiene could be lacking.
• Storage of sensitive food could become a problem. Could lead to shortage of food.
• People have to rely on other methods of cooking their food.
Health care / First responders
•Risk to the public, not being able to call for help and/or the ES not being able to receive calls.
•Reduced chance of service from air and ground ambulances due to cumulative problems.
Transportation
• The public might not recieve information concerning road conditions.
•Alternative routes for commute.
Financial systems
• Payment system, debet & credit, will likely not work.
• The public becomes dependent on cash.
23
4 National Risk Assessment Plans
The aim of Chapter 4 can be described with the following subjects:
analysis on how authorities in Iceland, Norway and Sweden consider impact from
electricity and ICT failure, along with their view towards the role of the general
public during crisis; and
a comparison of the previously mentioned subjects between the three countries.
In 2009 a decision was made to construct a framework on disaster prevention within the
European Union. Member States were invited to develop national approaches and
procedures to risk management including risk analysis, covering the potential major natural
disasters etc. (Puigarnau, 2011). This included Sweden as an EU member, and Iceland and
Norway also delivered their own. The purpose of this chapter is to analyse Risk Assessment
Plans for each of the countries in order to identify the main difference in their approach. The
comparison will focus on how each country approaches their assessment and their concerns
regarding electricity failure along with telecommunication breakdown. Furthermore there
will be an attempt to identify what part or duty, if any, the general public is supposed to
deliver during crisis.
4.1 Iceland
The Icelandic risk assessment (Almannavarnadeild, 2011) is divided into natural hazards,
environment and health, health care, fire safety, dangerous chemicals, buildings, and
infrastructure and social security. Each part contains various events such as storms, volcanic
eruptions etc. The events are then described in general where known and possible risks are
mentioned. Further, each event contains a specific scenario where previous incidents are
mentioned along with likelihood, mitigation methods etc. In the Icelandic risk assessment
the risk for every region is considered independently. This is performed through special
reports by each jurisdiction in Iceland and the key findings are published in the national
assessment. A summary from the regional reports can be seen in Appendix A.
4.1.1 Electricity
Power failure can have a significant or paralysing effect on societies. In general lifesaving
operations are equipped with electricity backup such as batteries or power generators.
Backup power is often present in critical services such as police and fire departments and
especially in hospitals. However, other operations generally lack backup power which can
lead to negative impacts on various industries, production, hot and cold water supply and
other critical infrastructures (Almannavarnadeild, 2011). The specific scenario, presented in
the Icelandic national risk assessment for electricity, covers an undefined area that suffers
electricity failure. The scenario does not address the magnitude, duration etc. of an event but
only that such an event would occur. Impact from this event is considered to have widespread
effect and not analysed further.
24
In case of power failure an emergency collaboration (NSR) has been set up. It is a
collaboration platform for processing companies, transport companies, distribution
companies, energy intensive companies and official parties in Iceland in case of emergencies
regarding, production, transportation or distribution of electric energy (l. no. 65/2003). Many
of the larger distribution companies have established emergency management where risk is
evaluated officially. This includes inspection of electricity production, distribution safety
through transmission lines and substations, etc.
The risk assessment points out that a coordinated nationwide plan for the whole country is
needed (Almannavarnadeild, 2011). Furthermore it points out that climate change, resulting
in more frequent thunderstorms, can increase negative effect on the distribution system.
Thus, preparations for these events are important regarding distribution lines and
constructions. Volcanic activity is also said to be a possible factor for power failure, however
it is only considered for one region. Lastly it is noted that greater supply of emergency power
is required.
4.1.2 ICT
Information and communication technologies have become a significant part of everyone’s
daily life. Awareness of the need of securing systems relying on these technologies has been
growing. Safety regarding radars, air communications, radio distribution networks etc. have
got to be ensured. Emergency response units are highly dependent on TETRA which could
lead to great lack of communication and coordination should it fail (Almannavarnadeild,
2011).
Failures in these systems that could be harmful to the society have been pointed out. The
failures cover damaged submarine cables connecting Iceland to Europe and America, a long
duration of electric power failure, malfunction in fibre optic cables etc. The same applies for
failures in other communication systems such as TETRA. Serious failures in these systems
are considered to cause a significant impact on safety, economy, transportation and the
common good. The specific scenario for ICT is a rather broad view of communication
breakdown both domestic and to other countries and cyber threats (Almannavarnadeild,
2011).
4.1.3 Role of the public
In Iceland, the national risk assessment (Almannavarnadeild, 2011) hardly addresses the role
of the general public. However, the assessment looks at dangers that could affect the general
public and how key personnel, government etc. have a responsibility to reduce negative
impact towards them. It points out that the resilience of people has to increase in the future
by raising awareness. Further, the public needs to be educated on natural hazards and
insurance. No discussion is made regarding the role of the general public in times of crisis;
whether the general public should be self-reliant for a certain time period during a crisis, if
they should rely on evacuation, or should get themselves out of dangerous situations.
4.2 Norway
In Norway the Risk Assessment Plan mainly consists of two parts. One covers natural events
and the other major accidents. Each part covers a variety of cases, such as extreme weather,
etc. Each case is described in four parts, with a background where previous events are
25
inspected such as previous hurricanes etc. and other events regarding each case. Risk from
those events is both observed and speculated with expert consulting. Prevention and
emergency preparedness for these events, both what has been done and what has to be done,
is analysed. Lastly a specific scenario is presented where an event that is considered very
extreme, but at the same time realistic, is described an analysed. In these scenarios they
assess probability of the event and its consequences, which are broken into life and health,
nature and the environment, economy, societal stability, and capacity to govern and
territorial control. Further, they make an uncertainty assessment which is often based on
their knowledge of the scenario, if it has happened before, etc.
4.2.1 Electricity
Power failure is not singled out as a specific event such as “extreme weather” but rather as
a by-product from certain events. Norway recognises events that can lead to electric failure,
such as great storms and flying objects that would damage the distribution network, a lack
of precipitation that would lead to insufficient water supply for hydro power plants and
“space weather” such as solar storms. The results would be limited or no power supply
leading to power rationing to keep critical functions of society operational (DSB, 2013).
For a specific “worst case” scenarios they address electricity in two ways. One being a great
storm near Oslo where the impact includes damage to power distribution and the other
specifically associated with electricity covering long-term power rationing. In the second
scenario areas affected have no supply of power. Crucial societal function such as hospitals
are given priority to electricity usage while other consumers receive limited power. In terms
of detail they cover the power rationing, to the general consumer, which they conclude is 4
hours 2 times a day. Further, they speculate that the power rationing “will lead to social
unrest and reactions such as anger and aggression” (DSB, 2013). For a 100-year solar storm
they estimate “hundreds of thousand inhabitants will be affected by a loss of power for up
to ten hours, and subsequently an unstable power supply for the entire day that the storm
lasts” (DSB, 2013). They also argue that this impact will mostly affect vulnerable groups
like the elderly. However, they estimate that this type of event will not lead to a critical
situation and evacuation will not be necessary (DSB, 2013).
4.2.2 ICT
There are no specific events for ICT failure in the Norwegian risk assessment and their
attention on ICT is less than on electricity. In terms of risk from the main events ICT is
neglected or mentioned in terms of possible risk from electric failure along with other critical
infrastructure (DSB, 2013).
“Worst case” scenarios are not created specifically for ICT failure in Norway. For a long-
term power rationing scenario they indicate that ICT systems will be hit hard along with all
networks that transmit electronic information and other critical function that depend on
electricity supply (DSB, 2013). For a rockslide with advance warning they assume “between
1,000 and 10,000 people will experience disruption in their everyday lives… and problems
with communication via ordinary ICT systems” (DSB, 2013). Further they indicate that
commuters travelling to the area will be effected by power supply disruption (DSB, 2013).
Lastly they address ICT systems for a 100-year solar storm scenario where “disturbances in
high-frequency (HF) communications… will affect both air traffic and military users of such
communication bands” (DSB, 2013). Further, they assume that “over a 100,000 people will
26
be unable to use ordinary electronic communications or public Internet-based services”
(DSB, 2013). As a consequence of these failures they address the reduced ability of
emergency services, disruption in satellite signals which would impact financial
transactions, control systems telecommunications etc. (DSB, 2013).
4.2.3 Role of the public
Public action is not particularly considered apart from social unrest and possible aggression
from people during crisis. However, the general public is assumed to avoid crowds during
pandemics and is considered being a source of information concerning forest fires (DSB,
2013).
4.3 Sweden
Sweden’s national risk assessment (MSB, 2012) uses scenario analysis. Firstly they
demonstrate what the scenarios include such as school shooting, failure in large damn, etc.
Secondly they describe the thematic background including similar events that have happened
in the past. Thirdly an impact-, likelihood-, and uncertainty assessment is performed for the
scenario. The Swedish plan has a specific view towards risk assessments since they do not
consider general events, such as “bad weather”, but only specific scenarios (MSB, 2012).
4.3.1 Electricity
Sweden considers electricity failure as a by-product of other scenarios. One is a “prolonged
heat wave” that includes a possible direct impact on electrical wires and cables and an
indirect impact on the electricity supply from limited precipitation. They point out high level
of uncertainty regarding the effects from this scenario (MSB, 2012). The other scenario
relates to “failure of a large dam on a river” where the impact from the flood on transmission
lines is considered along with disruption in the electricity supply (MSB, 2012). Further, in
these scenarios they include a detailed analysis of causes that lead to failure and the impact
from such failures. The report further recognizes a few threats regarding electric power
failure such as landslides, storms, solar storms etc. Furthermore the importance of electricity
in terms of infrastructures and emergencies is mentioned. They point out that electricity is
an important factor in medicine supply in terms of transportation and storage. The
distribution and storage along with the production of food is also considered to be threatened
from power failure. Lastly they point out that payment systems are at risk from electric
failure.
Sweden has had incidents in the past regarding banks getting wrong payments because of
bad communication. The report also recognizes the importance of the payment system to
work in order to enable people to acquire important goods for their daily life (MSB, 2012).
Sweden does not consider a special case for electric power failure as a whole but rather series
of incidents which electric failure leads to such as; disruptions in electronic communications,
disruptions in payment systems and disruptions in energy supplies. When it comes to
disruptions in energy supplies Sweden seems to be keen on emergency power sources such
as oil. They demand oil companies and other large parties to have a backup stockpile of oil
that is sufficient to handle all normal use for 90 days. They acknowledge the fact that
functioning electricity, distribution network, would fall under the disruption of energy
supply. Sweden also looks at scenarios such as the impact from downtime of several nuclear
reactors while at the same time water levels in hydro power plants are low. Their connection
27
to the neighbouring countries also increases energy safety if something would go wrong.
However in case of failure in the regional main network neighbouring countries could be
effected as well (MSB, 2012).
4.3.2 ICT
Causes leading to ICT failure events and their impacts are mentioned in few of the scenarios.
A specific scenario on a disruption in the GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) covers
impact from telecommunications on emergency units and others depending on it. In another
scenario, failure in ICT is considered as a secondary effect from a prolonged heat wave
where problems in the ICT is mentioned to occur. However the uncertainty is high regarding
impacts from heat waves. Another scenario that addresses communications is when a large
dam fails. This could lead to water crushing communication infrastructure (MSB, 2012).
4.3.3 Role of the public
No mention is made in the Swedish national risk assessment (MSB, 2012) of roles regarding
the general public.
4.4 Comparison
There are certain similarities regarding how the impact from electric power and
communication failure is evaluated in the three countries. The countries evaluate potential
threats causing power and ICT failure similarly. The likelihood of electric failure, or a
scenario leading to one, was considered as moderate to high risk varying between the
countries. ICT failure varied from very low to high risk. The low evaluation corresponds to
Sweden’s GNSS scenario. Scenarios, for electricity and ICT, in the Icelandic risk assessment
are vaguely described and include possible mitigation methods and identification of key
personnel. On the other hand, scenarios in the Norwegian and Swedish risk assessments
focus more on analysing consequences and impacts from such events on infrastructure and
the general public. In terms of an overall view and knowledge of the current situation of
infrastructures and causes leading to hazardous events the Icelandic assessment surpasses
the others. However, the Icelandic assessment is inferior regarding analysis on possible
scenarios and impacts that could occur from electricity failure in which Norway gives the
most comprehensive analysis. Further, the Icelandic risk assessment has poorly described
specific scenarios that focus on either electricity or ICT failure where Sweden has the most
detailed description in terms of ICT. When it comes to the general public one can conclude
that emphasis on public preparedness or resilience is non-existent in all cases. The
comparison of the risk assessment for Iceland, Norway and Sweden led to the following
differences shown in Table 4-1 on page 28. Further, the comparison is more visually
demonstrated in Table 4-2 on page 29. It is also worth pointing out that there was no reason
to compare findings from this comparison to what was put forth in Chapter 3. Impacts
covered in the risk assessment were from a broad viewpoint and thus not comparable to those
in Chapter 3.
28
Table 4-1: Comparison of the National Risk Assessment Plans for Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The table
demonstrates difference between electricity and ICT, and if the general public has some role to play in large
events.
Iceland Norway Sweden
Methodology
Dedicated chapters
on events,
infrastructure etc.
Least detailed
dedicated scenarios.
Dedicated chapters
on most events.
Most specific
scenarios analysis.
No dedicated
chapters for events.
Mildly less detailed
scenario analysis
than Norway.
Electricity
Dedicated chapter.
Dedicated scenarios
with a broad
perspective.
Focus more on
cause then impact.
More focus on key
personnel.
No dedicated
chapter.
Dedicated and
detailed scenario
analyses.
Focus both on
impact and cause.
Estimated numbers
on public effected
by events.
No dedicated
chapter.
By-product from
“damn failure”
scenario.
ICT – Information and Communication Technologies
Dedicated chapter /
section on
electricity.
Looked at from a
broad perspective.
No dedicated
chapter.
Is mentioned in a
detailed scenario on
power.
No dedicated
chapter.
Mentioned in other
scenarios.
Dedicated scenario
for GNSS.
Role of the general public
No dedicated
chapter.
The public is
referred to as
something that
needs to be
protected.
No mention on
public resilience.
No dedicated
chapter.
Expectation
regarding public
gathering during
pandemics.
Source of
information from
forest fires.
No direct mention
of public resilience.
No dedicated
chapter.
No mention of
public resilience.
29
Table 4-2 demonstrates the comparison between each country by subject more visually. “X”
represents that the topic is present in the assessment and rather good, the “+” represents that
the topic is present to some extent and the “-” represents the topic is addressed but rather
poorly. Blank spots then represent that the topic is not addressed at all.
Table 4-2: Visual comparison of the Risk Assessment Plans between Iceland, Norway and Sweden.
The table shows that almost nothing is mentioned regarding the general public. Impacts
that could occur from power failure are rather poorly addressed.
4.5 Summary
In this chapter National Risk Assessment Plans for Iceland, Norway and Sweden were
compared. All of the risk assessments provide detailed descriptions for causes that lead to
electricity or ICT failure. However, impact identification from these failures on other critical
infrastructures and households is poorly conducted, especially in Iceland. Focus on the
general public, their duties and preparedness, is lacking and almost non-existent in all
countries.
Topics
Ded
icat
ed c
hap
ter
on
infr
astr
uct
ure
Ded
icat
ed c
hap
ter
on
even
ts
Ded
icat
ed s
cenar
ios
Det
aile
d s
cen
ario
des
crip
tion
Det
aile
d i
mpac
t des
crip
tio
n
Cau
se o
f fa
ilure
in s
cen
ario
s
Vie
wed
as
a der
ivat
ive
Pro
tect
ing t
he
publi
c
Duti
es o
f th
e publi
c
Methodology
Iceland X X X - -
Norway X X X X X
Sweden X X X +
Electricity
Iceland X X X - -
Norway X X + X X
Sweden - + X
ICT
Iceland X X X - -
Norway + + X
Sweden X X X X X
Role of the
general public
Iceland X -
Norway X -
Sweden X
30
31
5 Two case studies
The aim of Chapter 5 can be described with the following subjects:
description of two electricity failure events that occurred in Iceland recently;
media analysis focusing on impact towards critical infrastructures and the general
public;
summary of impact towards critical infrastructure and households; and
threats from impacts and resilience of infrastructure and the general public will be
evaluated.
The purpose of this chapter is to analyse impact from an actual electricity failure event in
Iceland. These analyses are performed in order to enhance the understanding of such impact
towards critical infrastructures and households. Further, it will enable a comparison of a
theoretical and an actual impact identification.
5.1 Brennimelur
This case study will focus on a power failure event that occurred in Brennimelur in 2012 and
the impact it had on critical infrastructure as well as the general public.
5.1.1 Electricity distribution around Brennimelur
The electricity distribution network in Iceland is mostly in the hands of Landsnet. The
company was founded in 2005 due to the electric energy law that the parliament
implemented in 2003. The purpose of Landsnet is to distribute electric energy while
operating and maintaining the electric power network.
Substations
According to Landsnet (2012), substations are structures and equipment which are used to
feed electricity into the distribution network or to draw the electricity out of it. The main
components are power transformers, circuit breakers, delivery switches, ground sheets,
measuring transformers (i. mælaspennar), protective equipment, reactive equipment
(launaflsbúnaður) and aid equipment. Substations are considered vulnerable to sabotage, bad
weather and other external causes.
The substation at Brennimelur is one of the most important supply centres in the distribution
network. There are three 220 kV transmission lines connected to the substation,
Brennimelslína 1 and Sultartangalína 1 and 3. These lines distribute electricity straight from
large hydro power plants in the country. Further, the substation transports electricity on to
the country’s distribution network (132 kV) and to the region nearby (66 kV). It is also
connected to two energy intensive industries, Norðurál and Elkem. Another substation
nearby at Norðurál started operating in 2014. It increases the quality of electricity coming
from Landsnet into the aluminium smelter operated by Norðurál. There are two transmission
lines leading from the substation into Norðurál. Both are capable of delivering 500 MW in
32
case either one of them fails. However the lines do not operate at full capacity in general (E.
Sigurðsson & Magnússon, 2015). Norðurál also installed a device called crowbar which
helps them to deal with disturbance in the electricity network and has positive effects on
Landsnets distribution network.
5.1.2 Event description
On Tuesday the 10th of January 2012 an incident occurred in one of Landsnet‘s substation
called Brennimelur and is located in the West part of Iceland on the north side of Hvalfjörður.
Figure 5-1 shows the location where the incident originated. The cause of this incident was
mainly due to abnormal weather conditions. The incident caused interference in Landsnet’s
network at Brennimelur, Vatnshamrar, Hvolsvöllur and Rimakot. This led to loss of
electricity in different places around the country were the longest duration was in the
aluminium smelter (Norðurál) and Járnblendifélag Íslands (Elkem) in Grundartangi. The
aluminium smelter suffered electric failure for almost three and a half hours and limited
supply of electricity nine hours later. Elkem suffered loss of electricity for nearly 12 hours.
Figure 5-1: The location of Brennimelur, the teal coloured mark, where the power failure originated. The
yellow box on the overview map of Iceland shows the location of the enlarged figure.
Weather conditions
The area is close to the sea making salt pollution in the atmosphere quite frequent. When the
incident occurred the salt pollution meter varied from around 20 to 208 with an extreme high
value of 425,8 (Figure 5-2). The extreme high data point should not be taken too seriously
since that measurement occurred after the initial event and could be some form of
33
malfunction or another abnormality. Considering the fact that normal conditions of the salt
pollution meter ranges from 25-50 suggests the conditions were really bad.
Figure 5-2: Salt pollution meter for the Brennimelur area. In normal conditions the salt pollution meter
ranges from 25-50, salty weather from 50 to 100, heavy salty weather when around 100 and over and very
heavy salty weather when the meter shows 100-200. Retrieved from Landsnet.
“Later in the day on the 10th of January the atmosphere travelled over Grænlandssund
to Iceland leading to decrease in heat and humidity flowing into the atmosphere. After
that precipitation decreased. Humidity then decreased in many locations from 80-90%
to 50-60%, still it was cloudy in the west and north part of Iceland. Possible
explanation for the drop in humidity is the reduction in hail rather than the air,
travelling into the West part of Iceland, being dryer. With fewer hails the salt did not
wash off the capacitors of the transmission lines and led to a serious power failure in
the substation in Brennimelur around 6pm” (Petersen & Sveinbjörnsson, 2015).
Salinity has been a problem regarding electricity distribution in the past. On the 14th of
January 2001 power failures occurred in six different places. The same year, on the 10th to
the 13th of November, there were 24 interruptions in the network operated by Landsvirkjun,
including eleven on Vesturlína. Also, many power failures occurred on the country’s main
transmission line and in two other places (Landsvirkjun, 2001). In 2002 there were 241
interruptions in the electric grid operated by Orkubú Vestfjarða. The primary cause of
spontaneous interruptions in that year were traced to salinity, dirt and snow (Vestfjarða,
2004). The 27th of January 2008 capacitor 1 in Brennimelur malfunctioned which led to loss
of 300 MW to Norðurál. The main cause of the malfunction was salinity on capacitors in
Brennimelur (Landsvirkjun, 2008).
Communication
During the event Landsnet was dependent on the emergency communication TETRA in
order to resolve the situation. Interruptions occurred on normal communications during the
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
4500
0:0
1:2
00
5:2
1:3
80
7:2
9:4
20
9:2
3:4
81
0:0
5:2
41
0:3
7:4
81
1:1
2:1
01
1:4
4:0
61
2:1
5:0
21
2:4
3:1
21
3:1
0:4
41
3:3
7:3
41
4:0
0:5
21
4:2
9:2
01
4:5
2:4
61
5:1
8:3
61
5:4
4:0
41
6:0
6:3
01
6:3
0:4
61
6:5
4:3
01
7:2
7:2
41
7:4
8:3
61
8:0
7:0
22
1:0
2:2
82
1:2
7:5
02
2:0
6:0
22
2:4
0:0
02
3:2
0:5
6
Salt pollution meter
Salt pollution meter
34
event which increased the need of emergency communication usage. Since the duration of
the event was rather short the TETRA system performed well, as expected (J. Á.
Sigurjónsson, 2015). It is worth mentioning that the event did not last long enough for
emergency power of communication transmitters to start getting low since the TETRA
system has emergency power for 48 hours.
Affected areas There were nine main locations in Landsnet’s electric distribution grid that suffered loss of
power during the incidents. Two quadrants of the country also suffered loss of power,
Austurland (0.53 hours) and Vestfirðir (1.28 hours), along with two aluminium smelters,
Norðurál and Elkem. Appendix B describes the locations in more detail, their importance in
social terms and the transmission lines that service them. Down time of electric power for
Austurland, Vestfirðir and the aluminium smelters, as well as for the nine main locations, is
further analysed in Appendix B.
5.1.3 Media coverage analysis
In this section analysis will be performed on media coverage for the event. The purpose is
to identify impact, which occurred during the event, on critical infrastructures and
households. During the interruption in Brennimelur the effect from the power failure on
households was primarily in the form of no electricity for a rather short period of time.
Therefore it does not come as a surprise that there were no scenarios which made people feel
threatened in any way.
According to the media “television transmitting and a part of one company’s phone network
stopped working” (Fréttablaðið, 2012); (Hjaltadóttir, 2012). Interruptions of this kind may
lead to doubts on the reliability of ICT, since the event does not even last close to 24 hours
and causes significant malfunction in ICT. For a short or extended period of time this could
prevent people’s ability to receive information on the hazardous event, its magnitude and
impact on others. They might also be unable to call for help in case of emergencies, caused
by unrelated issues, such as health problems or accidents. Furthermore the importance of the
TETRA-network, though not mentioned in media reports, was discovered. Landsnet
depended greatly on this form of communication in order to resolve the situation.
The electric failure affected other infrastructure as well, most important of which being the
hot water supply that stopped working entirely in one part of the country (Guðmundsson,
2012); (Malmquist, 2012c); (G. Sigurðsson, 2012). This is also pointed out in the annual
report from Orkuveita Reykjavíkur in 2012. Furthermore the Brennimelur event is
mentioned to have caused malfunction in many pumps for hot water and sewer systems,
leading to shortage of hot water distribution in many places in southern Iceland
(Reykjavíkur, 2012). Because Iceland is highly dependent on geothermal water for house
heating the lack of its distribution can have a significant impact on households. Also, the
lack of function in the sewer system might lead to health problems if the time period would
be extended. For this event the impact cannot be considered as significant but rather as
inconvenience regarding daily activities such as showering or cleaning. However, if this kind
of malfunction to the distribution would extend to a longer period of time people could
experience their room temperature dropping very low, depending on season and weather.
35
A couple of factors were discovered regarding impact on transportation from the event. The
electric failure affected the road tunnel Hvalfjarðargöng, which is a part of the main road in
Iceland, leading to its closure for some time (Guðmundsson, 2012); (G. Sigurðsson, 2012).
Closed road tunnels from power failure results first and foremost in interruption of traffic
for the general public and the transportation of goods. If the tunnels had been closed for a
longer duration it could have led to a more significant impact on people’s lives, such as
commuting to work, receiving essentials, etc. Also, sudden electric failure in the road tunnel,
during heavy traffic, could cause a major automobile accident inside the tunnel which in this
case is under the sea. This could result in lives lost and a major rescue operation. Drivers
that forget to turn their car lights on might increase the risk of such accidents. It is worth
mentioning that after this event Spölur, owner and operator of the tunnels, has installed
emergency power. Another threat connected to power failure in tunnels is the accumulation
of toxins should the ventilation system stop functioning. The other discovered factor, which
could have happened, concerns the distribution of information from the Road
Administration. The road agency reminded people to call and check the road conditions
during the event (Malmquist, 2012c). A scenario could arise where important information
about road conditions could not reach the general public. Considering bad weather on top of
that could lead to increased strain on rescue units, fire department etc. which might be
involved in resolving the original situation.
Further, an impact was detected which was not caused by the lack of functioning electricity
supply. As mentioned in the case study for Brennimelur the substation caught on fire which
was handled by the fire department in Akranes (G. Sigurðsson, 2012). This demonstrates
that electric power failure event can have various effects. In this case increased strain on
other critical infrastructures, the fire department, was in the form of them helping to restore
the electricity infrastructure.
5.1.4 Household and infrastructure impact summary
The analysis shows clearly that power failure for brief period of time can have a significant
impact on the function of infrastructures in modern societies. A power failure of this duration
seems not to impact people’s lives significantly and could be considered as an unnecessary
inconvenience. The level of concern rises after revealing the impact from the event on
infrastructures. Since infrastructures have both direct and indirect effect on daily lives of the
general public, strengthening and enhancing security of these infrastructures is of the utmost
importance for civilian security and maintaining daily routines. A summary of the impacts
that occurred in Brennimelur is demonstrated in Table 5-1 on the following page.
36
Table 5-1: Impact on infrastructures from the Brennimelur case study. Direct and possible effect on the general
public is also included.
Infrastructure Impact Effect on public
Energy –
electricity
A large impact on the electric
distribution system separating
it into independent areas out
of reach from the main source.
A lot of manpower required to
resolve the situation. Large
impact on energy intense
industry, close to devastating.
None or interrupted lighting. Lack of
house heating in some cases, for
electric dependent households.
ICT –
information
and
communication
technologies
Failure in television
transmitting from certain
distribution companies.
Lack of information to general public
regarding the progression of the
event. Other consequences would be
lack of general entertainment but
would not be considered as threats.
Water supply
and sewer
Breakdown in water pumps
from electric failure.
No significant impact regarding the
event itself. Possible consequences
would be minor inconvenience unless
for a prolonged period of time.
Further, the function of sewer
systems is critical for dense societies
to function and maintain a viable level
of a healthy community.
Transportation Most clear impact was the
closing of the road tunnel in
Hvalfjörður. The other one
was more of concern
regarding information flow
from the Road
Administration.
Sudden failure of lights in tunnels
could lead to accidents and prolonged
down time of ventilation would lead
to dangerous level of toxins in the air.
Redirection of traffic through less
maintained roads could increase the
number of accidents causing
increased stress on other
infrastructures, first responders etc.
First
responders
In the case study the particular
incident occurred where the
cooperation of a fire
department was needed in
order for maintenance in the
substation to continue.
No direct consequences except if a
possible scenario was to happen
where the fire department’s man
power would be needed elsewhere.
37
5.2 The Westfjords
This case study focuses on power failure that occurred around new-year in 2012/2013 and
the impact it had on critical infrastructures as well as the general public. The incident
happened because of a great storm that impacted the North-West part of Iceland called
Vestfirðir (e. Westfjords). The location of Westfjords can be seen in Figure 5-3.
Figure 5-3: Geographic position of the Westfjords. Retrieved from Almannavarnir.
The Westfjords are a rather isolated part of the country and fairly irregular in shape. Towns
are located in some of the fjords the largest being Ísafjörður with around 2600 inhabitants.
There is a ring road in the Westfjords that makes most of the towns connected to 2 roads
rather than one. However in the winter time these roads are fragile when it comes to heavy
snow and storms and can isolate people, or even towns, from essential services like health
care etc. There are also other factors that threaten the safety of the people living in the
Westfjords such as electricity and internet connection. The Westfjords are connected to the
main distribution network for Iceland through a single 132 kV transmission line. Apart from
that they rely on hydro power plants for electricity. They are also connected to the internet
through a single cable, which is being worked on to double the safety.
5.2.1 Westfjords electricity distribution network
In this chapter the power distribution network in the Westfjords will be described. Readers
can reference the explanations in Figure 5-4.
Source of power for the power distribution network in the Westfjords consists of:
electric power distribution from Landsnet through a 132 kV transmission line called
Mjólkárlína 1, the red line from Geiradalur to Mjólká;
twelve hydro power plants, blue circles located throughout the Westfjords; and
thirteen diesel generators, red squares located throughout the Westfjords.
The 132 kV red line is owned and operated by Landsnet and the blue lines are operated by
both Landsnet and Orkubú Vestfjarða. Orkubú Vestfjarða is then solely responsible for other
lines shown in Figure 5-4.
38
Figure 5-4: The power distribution network in the Westfjords. Retrieved from Orkubú Vestfjarða.
Power sources in the Westfjords
As mentioned earlier there are twelve hydro power plants in the Westfjords, eight of them
are owned and operated by Orkubú Vestfjarða, the others are privately owned but still
connected to the network (Vestfjarða, 2011).
Mjólkárvirkun (e. hydro power plant in Milk River)
Construction of the power plant in Milk River started in 1956 and was operational in 1958.
The power plant was connected to the national distribution network in 1980 through
Vesturlína. Until that year it had been the main source of power for the Westfjords, now it
generates power directly into Landsnets distribution system. Since the power plant was
constructed two more have been built, Mjólká II and Mjólká III. These two power plants
combined generate 10,6 MW in total making them the “single” largest power plant in the
Westfjords (Vestfjarða, 2012). The power plant has played a key role in the past when the
Westfjords have lost connection to the main distribution grid in Iceland. However, during
this event the power plant failed to operate.
Emergency power
There were over two dozen diesel generators in the Westfjords at the time of the event that
are owned by the electric distribution company. The generators should be able to sustain
Substation owned by Landsnet and OV Substation owned by OV
Hydro power plant
Diesel generator
39
urban areas in the region as long as there is oil to burn and they are functioning. However,
during the event a few of them malfunctioned and some ran out of oil. Furthermore some of
them were located in places that were hard to reach or dangerous to stay in for operators due
to risk of avalanches.
5.2.2 Event description
Weather conditions
In the Westfjords event weather conditions differed a lot from Brennimelur. Though salinity
contributed to malfunctions in the electric distribution network the main impact was from
the storm itself. Winds were very strong and reached over 40 m/s in many places with heavy
snow fall in most areas and avalanches. All these factors lead to the collapse of the electric
distribution network at that time. The weather and risk of avalanches did not only concern
the distribution system but also blocked roads leading to isolation of many places in the
Westfjords.
Effected areas
The event affected the Westfjords as a whole, some areas more than others. Impact from the
power failure on the people in the Westfjords depended greatly on where they were located.
People living in towns were a lot better off since emergency power was present and kept
electric distribution going at some level. The power failure started on December the 28th at
23:00 with minor interruptions. Throughout the night and morning of December the 29th
failure of four main distribution lines in Westfjords occurred. On the same day at 18:45 all
four main distribution lines from Mjólkárvirkjun were out of service. At that time all
emergency power generators had been started. These generators are located in Ísafjörður
(population: 2602), Bolungarvík (866), Þingeyri (267), Flateyri (214), Súgandafjörður,
Súðavík (145), Hólmavík (380), Reykhólar (121), Reykjanes, Patreksfjörður (636) and
Bíldudalur (168). In 2013 the number of people living in the Westfjords were around 7000
and around 700 people were estimated to be living in rural areas. Final repairs were made
on January the 1st and on that evening at 19:30 Ársneshreppur finally had functioning
electricity having been without electricity for three and a half days. Communication during
the event was terrible. Both normal and emergency communications stopped working during
the event. This effected the general public as well as first responders and key personnel
working on resolving the situation.
5.2.3 Media coverage analysis
In this section analysis will be performed on media coverage for the event. The purpose is
to identify impacts, which occurred during the event, on critical infrastructures and
households. During the interruption in the Westfjords the effect from the power failure was
far greater on households as well as infrastructure than in the Brennimelur event.
Impact on household
Barði Sveinsson, a farmer in Innri-Múli, experienced the power failure on the 29th of
December. When the blackout occurred all roads leading to his home were impassable
(Malmquist, 2012a). This scenario could be frightening to anyone, being out of contact with
everyone you know and unable to call for help in case of emergencies. Furthermore other
alternatives of transportation were unavailable due to the bad weather at the time. Other
40
people with a similar experience of the event expressed more concerns. One of them was
Jóhanna Kristjánsdóttir, a farmer in Svansvík in Ísafjarðardjúp. She described that loss of
communication was the worst in her opinion. She felt very insecure, not being able to
monitor the situation and that people could not contact her. She also mentioned that in these
situations the neighbours on the countryside try to communicate in order to check if everyone
is all right (Broddason). This statement stresses the importance of communication in order
for the public to reach first responders and to control panic.
Eyþór Jóvinsson, a store owner in Ísafjörður, went to buy batteries in a store which was lit
up with candles (Valþórsson, 2012). Though candlelit stores sound romantic and appealing
it does not always make them the most functional. There was nothing mentioned regarding
payment for the batteries however if the scenario would be expanded to a larger city and for
a longer period of time the method regarding payment could easily be questioned. That
would not be the first time stores had to deal with electricity problems regarding payment
and they probably could write every purchase down to a large extent. On the other hand the
general public might not be ready with a stock of cash in order to buy food and other goods.
The people living in Ísafjörður were generally not pleased with the service from the
electricity distributor and found lack of information on progress concerning the event
staggering (Einarsson, 2012b). It could be a quite troubling factor to have no information
about what is happening, how long the situation will last or how to behave during the event.
The lack of information was caused from chaos that occurred within the distribution
company and their failure to allocate the information rather than the communication
breakdown.
The event in the Westfjords caused serious problems for a lot of people when it came to
living conditions inside their homes. In remote places houses are often heated with electricity
or oil but not with hot water like 90% of houses in Iceland (Orkusetur, 2005). However
households in the Westfjords either depend on electricity or geothermal water for
househeating. Ágústa Sveinsdóttir, a resident in Norðurfjörður, said she could not deny that
she was starting to get cold. She had to put on lot of clothes and walk around the house to
keep warm. She also made hot drinks using her Primus gas stove (Malmquist, 2013). Others
had similar stories to tell like Gunnsteinn Gíslason and his wife Margrét Jónsdóttir who live
in Bergistanga in Árneshreppur. Their living room temperature dropped down to 7°C. They
focused on staying in the smallest room of their house, using a gas stove for heating and
slept fully clothed to prevent hypothermia. They killed time by listening to their battery
powered radio and mentioned that general hygiene diminishes quickly when you are not able
to shower. Like many rural areas they were not equipped with diesel generators for heating
which would have come in handy. Elísa Ösp Valgeirsdóttir, the principal of
Finnbogastaðaskóli, did not enjoy the luxury of diesel generator for heating like the
previously mentioned couple. She, her husband and their three kids sought refuge at her
brother’s home, who lived nearby, during nights. They also experienced a lot of cold and felt
that the darkness was overwhelming since the sun hardly shows itself at this time of year in
this part of the country (Helgason, 2013). Some people were better equipped to deal with the
situation like Bjarnheiður Júlía Fossdal, a farmer in Melar. She explains that the diesel
generators saved her and many others nearby. She also mentioned that a special deal had to
be made with the power distribution company for her to own the machine (Helgason, 2013).
A drop in inside temperature over a long period of time can have severe effect on people’s
health and living conditions especially if they are ill equipped. For people living in remote
places or outside of towns the affects become more significant than they would in the eyes
41
of people living in a town or city. Because the event in the Westfjords was a combination of
electric failure, communication breakdown and horrible weather, the impact from one of
these factors all of a sudden turns into situations that are considered dangerous or in some
cases life threatening.
To weigh up the downside of these events there was at least one individual that thought of
the event as very romantic and was certain that the number of new-borns would be high nine
months from the event. It is very likely that this individual did not have to deal with the
impact on the same level as some of the people described above.
Impact on infrastructure
The greatest impact on the electric distribution system was mostly caused by the bad
weather, resulting in transmission lines being covered in snow, broken masts and salinity
(Malmquist, 2012b). The number of broken masts in one of the transmission lines, called
Ólafsfjarðarlína, was 67 (Pétursdóttir, 2013).
Emergency power required during the event was far from reliable. Some diesel generators
had to be relied on to function without an operator since they were stationed in exposed areas
where avalanche risk was high (Einarsson, 2012c). Areas in the region were isolated and
used emergency power separately and the urban areas were a lot better off than the rural
areas (Halldórsson, 2012a).
Telecommunication was very fragile during the event and connection to a lot of
telecommunication transmitters was lost along with a few GSM-transmitters due to bad
weather (Halldórsson, 2012b); (Häsler, Malmquist, & Einarsson, 2012). A meeting was
called with the telecommunication companies in order to figure out how to react regarding
a long lasting electric failure (Häsler et al., 2012). This raises the question of the
preparedness and capabilities of Iceland’s infrastructure to deal with these events. Electricity
was directed in order to charge the communication transmitters (Häsler, 2012). During the
event tens of transmitters stopped working because of electric failure, the TETRA network
which services the police, first responders and SAR did not function properly and at some
point the communications could only be performed locally (Malmquist, 2012d). As much as
29 telecommunication transmitters were out of power during the event and were therefore
shut down. The GSM-network was used to warn people about potential avalanches and
evacuation, it did function in urban areas where emergency power was present (Harðarson,
2013). In threatening scenarios as formed during the event the importance of communication
systems is crucial. Because of the regions geographic condition and its history of bad weather
and heavy snow, the importance of good communication is critical. The fact that the police
department, first responders and Search and Rescue units had to deal with issues regarding
their emergency communication devices raises concerns. Further it was mentioned that
telecommunications almost completely failed throughout all of the Westfjords (Valþórsson,
2013). It is of the upmost importance that critical infrastructure such as lifesaving operations
are fully functional. These functions need to be equipped to maintain their role when serious
events occur. Another consideration came up regarding communication system which was
regarding landline connection. Many important centres in the landline network were
operated on emergency power (Valþórsson & Gunnarsson, 2012). Should these centres fail
completely in terms of power the final frontier of public communications would fall, old
touch-tone telephones would therefore stop working.
42
Transportation was crippled during the event which was not caused by electric failure but
bad weather. However, the importance of other infrastructure is crucial when one or several
of them fail. Trucks with groceries and other goods were unable to reach their destination
due to heavy snow and avalanche risk. Further, another truck was dispatched from the other
side of the country in order to deliver oil for the diesel generators (Einarsson & Jónasson,
2012). Another threat regarding transportation similar to the Brennimelur case study was
due to electric failure and malfunction in the transmitters owned and operated by the
Icelandic Road Association (K. Sigurjónsson, 2012). This could lead to wrong information
from the agency regarding road conditions that might impact the general public while trying
to reach their destination and resulting in them calling for help. That situation would increase
stress on Search and Rescue, police etc. which were fully occupied during the event.
Search and Rescue units were dispatched to investigate the impact on transmission lines
(Malmquist & Einarsson, 2012). Due to bad weather and heavy snow conditions the Search
and Rescue units were needed in order to get parts of the telecommunication network up and
running (P. Jónasson, 2012). They also accompanied workers for the diesel generators
because of avalanche risk (Einarsson, 2012a). Apart from assisting workers regarding repairs
on transmission lines, the Search and Rescue units also assisted hospitals employees to get
to and from work. Since Iceland does not operate a military that services the country in time
of crisis, the importance of volunteer work performed by SAR during those crisis cannot be
overstated. Other infrastructure related to SAR had a role to play in the event. First and
foremost of which was the Coast Guard which deployed workers from the
telecommunication companies in remote places to refill energy supplies in certain
transmitters.
5.2.4 Household and infrastructure impact summary
The Westfjord’s event led to a significant impact on the general public and on critical
infrastructures. The analysis clearly demonstrates the vulnerability of the public and
infrastructures. The case study further reveals how factors such as weather, time of year, etc.
can decrease the capabilities of those trying to resolve a large electricity failure. A summary
of the impacts occurring in the Westfjords event can be seen in Tables 5-2 and 5-3 on the
following pages.
43
Table 5-2: Impact on household from failure in infrastructure from the Westfjords case study. Further, impact
towards individuals from impact on households is demonstrated.
Infrastructure Impact on homes Effect on public / individuals
Energy –
electricity
Failure in lighting,
house heating and
communications.
Though the absent of lighting for a few days
can’t be considered as a threat to people, it can
however impact the mood of some people.
Further, it can cause trouble to people who
have home grown products or have a lot of
plant life in their household.
ICT –
information
and
communication
technologies
Failure of emergency
and normal
telecommunications.
Landline was
operational but
required people to
have older phones
that draw their power
directly from the
phone line.
Most significant impact on individuals was the
disability in being able to contact emergency
services. Other impacts included people not
being able to contact their loved ones,
generating disturbance in their peace of mind.
Lack of information flow to the public. Some
people had to depend on battery powered
radios to be informed about the development
of the incident.
Water supply
and sewer
Failure in hot water
distribution and the
access to drinking
water, possibly.
In terms of house heating, the impact
corresponds to the electric factor mentioned
above. The lack of water distribution long-
term has negative effects on the health aspects
on a society. Depending on the season the
access to drinking water can vary. Combining
frozen water and the lack equipment to heat it
could turn into a difficult situation regarding
consumption of fresh water.
Transportation Impact was not a
result of electric
failure, however
avalanche risk and
heavy snow blocked
off roads.
Isolates people from emergency services and
other daily services. Making people incapable
to reach for help or help to come to them.
Making people depend on food and other
equipment present in their homes.
Financial
system
Store in Ísafjörður
serviced goods over
the counter over
candle light.
In a certain point of view the electric failure
happened at a good time, when people have
already stocked up on food and goods.
However prolonged exposure to electric
failure causes people to be dependent on cash
to pay for food/goods. This is a concern since
credit / debit car use in Iceland is very high.
44
Table 5-3: Impact on infrastructure from the Westfjords case study. Further, the effect caused by the impact
on infrastructures function is demonstrated.
Infrastructure Impact on infrastructure Effect on function
Energy –
electricity
Impact on energy infrastructure was
not due to electric failure but bad
weather destroying parts of the
distribution system and restricting
access to repair it.
Insufficient or no electricity
distribution to homes and other
infrastructure.
ICT –
information
and
communication
technologies
Impact was both due to lack of
electricity and bad weather.
Failure both locally and
“globally”. Dependent on
emergency power which
depleted in some cases. Unable
to maintain function after 24-48
hours of reserve power.
Water supply
and sewer
Lack of electricity to keep pumps
working.
Limited or no water distribution
towards households. Comes
dependent on emergency
power.
Transportation Direct impact on road monitoring
system operated by the Road
Administration. Other impacts were
weather and season based.
Lack of important information.
Alternative routes were needed.
Financial
system
No concrete evidence of failure. No evidence of lack of function.
Health care Depended on emergency power. No evidence on lack of function
except for their reliance on
SAR to transport workers to
and from the hospital.
First
responders
Impact in form of communication
breakdown.
Coordination becomes more
difficult. Loss of
communication towards the
Civil Protection Agency.
People trying to reach them
were unable to.
45
5.3 Impact evaluation
In this section evaluation of the impact from the previously mentioned case studies will be
performed. One in form of threat evaluation from certain impacts that were accounted for in
the studies, another regarding resilience of infrastructure during the events and the last one
focusing on the resilience of the public. Beneath each evaluation table justifications for each
evaluation is given. Further, impact found in the case studies are compared to those put forth
in chapter 3.
5.3.1 Threat evaluation
In this section the main impact that was identified in the case studies is represented with
evaluation of threat towards the public and/or infrastructure (Table 5-4). The evaluation is
based on the case studies directly but not for electric failure in general. Since the other
factors, like time of year, location, etc., contribute towards the results of this kind of
evaluation the following findings cannot be universally considered however they can be used
as references for further studies. For this threat evaluation factors such as credible or likely
to happen will not contribute to the evaluation since the incidents already occurred. Instead
the following factors will be considered for the evaluation in Table 5-4:
impact on critical infrastructures;
impact on normal living conditions;
impact on the ability to reach safety or help (first responders, hospitals, etc.); and
connection between impacts during an event.
Table 5-4: Threat evaluation from the main impacts discovered from the case studies. Threat is displayed
with colours green, light green, yellow, orange and red. Green corresponds very low level of threat while
red corresponds to very high levels of threat.
Threat level
Impac
t
Lack of electricity
House heating
Cell phone network
Emergency communications
Lighting
Alternative transportation routes
Blocking of transportation routes
Closed tunnels
Information flow
Isolation
Fresh water distribution
Lack of information
Landline
46
Lack of electricity scores a “very high” threat because of its overall broad impact. House
heating scores a “very high” threat because the impact led to people’s homes dropping in
temperature, which is especially bad considering the time of year the event occurs, and that
very few households seemed to be prepared with alternative heating. Failure in cell phone
network gets a “rather high” threat rating since it limits people‘s ability to call for aid while
at the same time landlines were still functioning but with interruptions. Failure in emergency
communications gets the “very high“ rating since not only would that be one of the last ways
for the public to reach emergency services, should they have emergency communications,
but further it limits these services to coordinate during the event. Lighting gets the rating of
“very little” threat especially since there were no direct consequences other than some
emotional unrest. Alternative transportation routes gets a “rather little“ threat rating since
the risk involved would be to travel less maintained routes and people had to be more alert
regarding road conditions. Blocking of transportation on the other hand gets a threat rating
of “very high” since people living in isolated places could be unable to reach for help,
especially when communications are down, and transportation of food, goods, etc. could
become problematic. Closed tunnels get a rating of “medium” which is evaluated on two
things, one the alternative road scenario and a more critical one being sudden failure of
lighting and air vents in the tunnels. This could possibly lead to more crashes and a worst
case scenario a long-term exposure to toxins, death. Information flow gets the rating of
“medium” threat, information flow was mostly important during the Westfjord incident but
was somewhat lacking. Threats from lack information were considered as emotional and
leading to bad judgement on what to do during the event which resulted in the previously
mentioned evaluation. Isolation gets the “very high” rating since it corresponds both to
isolation towards communications and commute (blocking of roads) which both got very
high levels of threat. Lack of information gets a “medium” rating since the lack of
information towards the public can have significant impact on the public in terms of moral
as well as decision making during the event. A worse rating than medium was considered
inappropriate since this impact would likely not risk the health of the public. Landline gets
evaluation of “rather high” since during the event it did not stop functioning entirely however
being the most robust system in the ICT category and arguably the most relied on in terms
of durability during crisis it should be considered a high threat.
5.3.2 Infrastructure resilience evaluation
Evaluation of infrastructure resilience can be seen in Table 5-5. For this evaluation
performance of the infrastructures was taken into account, their capability to withstand
electric failure as well general operation capability during the event unrelated to electricity.
Table 5-5 can be seen on the following page. The resilience evaluation will mostly rely on
the following factors:
operational capabilities that focus on how the main system as well as its backup
functioned during the events; and
restoring capabilities that focus on how well the infrastructures were able to restore
their systems.
47
Table 5-5: Resilience evaluation for critical infrastructures. Resilience is displayed with colours
green, light green, yellow, orange and red. Green corresponds very good resilience while red
corresponds to very bad resilience.
Resilience level
Infr
astr
cuct
ure
Electricity
ICT
Transportation
Water supply
Financial systems
Health care
First responders
Distribution companies
Food
The electricity infrastructure got a resilience evaluation of “very bad”. Failure was caused
by bad weather and salinity in both cases. Further, the Brennimelur case the electric
distribution network was effected in some way throughout the whole country.The Westfjords
case emergency power failed during the event and operating those facilities was dangerous
because of avalanche risk. The distribution between the area effected and the main
distribution network was completely severed. The ICT infrastructure suffered failure in cell
phone and emergency communication along with interruptions in the landline. This results
in an evaluation of “bad”. Transportation infrastructure during the event gets evaluation of
“very bad” since roads were closed or too dangerous to drive from avalanche risk blocking
distribution of goods. Further sea and air transportations were down. Water supply was
mentioned to have suffered interruptions during Brennimelur event and even more so during
the Westfjords event resulting in a “rather bad” evaluation. Both financial systems and health
care score a “very good” rating since there were no direct evidence of failure in these
infrastructures. This rating should not be taken too seriously or look at these infrastructures
as safe. First responders get a rating of “rather good” which is justified by the fact that during
the Westfjords event the police lost communications during the event. In terms of manpower
and capability the police, SAR, etc. of doing their job they would score “very good” but
since communications failed it must be considered as part of their infrastructure. Distribution
companies get a rating of “rather bad” because of their dependencies on SAR in order to
reach areas where systems failed and during the Westfjords event emergency power they are
responsible for stopped functioning during the event. Considered the chaos during the event
the companies did not get a “really bad” rating. Food infrastructure relates mainly to
distribution for this case, it gets the rating of “rather good” since it did occurr that food
distribution was blocked due to snow and avalanche risk.
48
5.3.3 Household resilience evaluation
The public cannot be categorized like the infrastructures in Table 5-5. Most of the public
during the Westfjord event had emergency power for large part of the event. However the
analysis show really well that the public is quite resourceful and self-reliant. The people who
suffered the most live in areas that are considered dangerous in terms of electric,
communication and transportation safety. This could contribute to the fact that the public in
the area were perhaps more prepared or resourceful than other parts of the country would be,
especially urban areas. Furthermore there were no cases of the public suffering from food
shortage which is not surprising since the event occurred during Christmas when people are
normally stocked up on food. Since the event did not last too long, though almost four days
is far too long compared to standards set on electricity by modern societies, people who
suffered the most were starting to get cold, lacked emergency communication as well as
alternative heating sources. Another factor that diminishes the preparedness of the public is
their incompetence to get to and from work and needing the help of SAR to do so, it is the
author’s opinion that the resilience of the public should be categorized as medium.
5.3.4 Comparing to the theoretical impact
Comparing the results of actual events to what was identified in Chapter 3 there are a few
differences regarding which infrastructures and which impacts occurred. Figure 5-5
demonstrates infrastructures considered in Chapter 3 and those the case studies. The red
circles indicate those infrastructures that were affected by the actual events and the green
circles represent those who were not affected in the case studies or very little but were at the
same time covered in Chapter 3. The blue circle represents an infrastructure that was not
included especially in the theoretical identification however, it is a part of the energy
infrastructure but was included especially because of its lack of resilience.
Figure 5-5: Infrastructures from the theoretical identification as well as the case studies.
Infrastructures
Energy
ICT
First responders
Water supply
Transport-ation
Distri-bution
companies
Health care
Food supply
Financial systems
49
Impacts on households turned out to relate to failure in electricity and ICT to a large extent
even though in one case study bad weather resulted in numerous impacts. Further, impacts
due to other reasons such as blocked roads becomes much more severe when additional
impact from no electricity and ICT occurs. Comparing impacts on households from the case
studies to those put forth in Chapter 3 revealed three new impacts which had not been
accounted for. Figure 5-6 demonstrates impacts towards households from the theoretical
identification as well as those discovered in the case studies. The red circles represent impact
which was included in the theoretical identification and appeared in the case studies. The
green circles represent impacts which were accounted for originally but did not appear in the
case studies and the blue circles represent impacts which were not accounted for originally
but did appear in the case studies.
Figure 5-6: Impacts from the theoretical identification as well as the case studies.
Impact
Lack of information
Contact family
Depend on emergency communica
tion
House heating
Lighting
Alternative power source
Hygiene
Alternative cooking
Contact ES
Out of reach for
rescue
Alternative routes
Food storage
Alternative payment
Tunnels
Isolation
Blocked routes
50
5.4 Results
Critical infrastructures suffer significant failures when exposed to short and long term failure
in electricity infrastructure. The general public on the other hand suffers from long term
exposure. Identifying impact from these failures resulted in an evaluation of, threats from
impacts on the general public, and resilience of critical infrastructure as well as the general
public. Table 5-6 lists, impacts with the highest level of threat, least resilient infrastructures
and the most crucial aspects that were lacking regarding households preparedness. Further,
the most significant impacts detected were due to failure in these systems, especially when
they were combined with other impacts during the event such as blocked roads etc. or from
failure in other infrastructures caused by electricity failure.
Table 5-6: Summary of evaluations. The table shows impacts with the highest level of threat, least resilient
infrastructures and the most crucial aspects that were lacking regarding households.
Impact Infrastructure resilience Household resilience
Lack of electricity
House heating
Emergency
communications
Blocking of
transportation routes
Isolation
Electricity
ICT
Transportation
Alternative
heating sources
Emergency
communication
The vast majority of the general public was safe during the events. However there were
various findings regarding people who suffered during the event. These difficulties were in
most cases caused by electricity failure. Making people unable to keep temperature in their
homes at a reasonable level or to contact others, especially emergency services, should other
problems occur such as illnesses or accidents during the events.
Comparing results from the case studies to what was put forth in Chapter 3 resulted in the
following discovery.
Table 5-7: Main findings from comparing case studies to the theoretical identification.
Infrastructure not
affected
New infrastructure
affected
Did not affect
households
New Impact
Financial
systems
Food supply
Health care
Distribution
companies
Alternative
payment
Food storage
Blocked
routes
Isolation
Tunnels
51
5.5 Summary
In this chapter we described the two case studies as well as analysed the impact from the
event as a whole. Further we categorized and evaluated the impact that occurred for the
events. The Brennimelur event was a short period event that affected the whole country in
some way and demonstrated well how significant impact from electricity failure in key
locations in the distribution network can be. Meanwhile the Westfjords event gave a good
example of impact for events that cover longer time periods as well preparedness needed
during such events.
52
53
6 Analysis of public preparedness
The aim of Chapter 6 can be described with the following subjects:
an overview of public preparedness studies conducted in other countries than
Iceland; and
an evaluation on public preparedness through surveys conducted in Iceland.
The purpose of this chapter is to evaluate the public preparedness in Iceland based on two
surveys. One distributed to the general public and the other to key personnel (stakeholders).
These surveys, the public preparedness survey especially, will hopefully give authorities and
key personnel an idea of current preparedness of their civilians.
6.1 General on public preparedness
According to the International Organization for Standardization preparedness or “incident
preparedness” is defined as:
“Activities taken in order to prepare incident response” (ISO, 2011).
Further, “incident response” is defined as the “actions taken in order to stop the causes of an
imminent hazard and/or mitigate the consequences of potentially destabilizing or disruptive
event, and to recover to a normal situation” (ISO, 2011). This section as well as all of
Chapter 6 will focus on the preparedness of the general public regarding electric failure.
Public preparedness will be viewed as either perceived or actual preparedness. Perceived
preparedness relates to, how people view their preparedness and their ability to deal with
crisis scenarios. However, actual preparedness relates to people’s actual preparedness for
crisis scenarios which takes into account what equipment they own, their knowledge of
certain aspects, etc.
Public preparedness has been studied in many parts of the world for all sorts of hazardous
events. These studies are mostly based on surveys that are directed to the public in order to
evaluate their preparedness. Studies that have been conducted have had different aims. Some
focus on a certain event such as a storm, flood, volcanic eruptions etc. while others trend
towards a more over all viewpoint. In 2003, Ready, a government supported national public
service encourages the general public in the US to be more prepared and tries to “increase
the level of basic preparedness across the country” (Ready, 2013a). They list three main
things which they ask individuals to do: “(1) build an emergency supply kit, (2) make a
family emergency plan and (3) be informed about the different types of emergencies that
could occur and their appropriate responses” (Ready, 2013a). However, people seem to
prepare when they see interest in it. “Those with higher incentives to prepare and for whom
the potential consequences are more salient are more likely to prepare.” (Donahue, Eckel, &
Wilson, 2013). Further, public preparedness seems to relate to information present to the
public. Those who are prepared are well informed since they seem to seek knowledge to
prepare and vice versa (Donahue et al., 2013). During natural disasters people have
experienced overwhelming lack of expectation, minimal preparation and confusion over
54
warnings (King, 2000). If people belief a negative outcome will result from a hazardous
event the more unlikely they are to act and enhance their preparedness (Paton, Smith, Daly,
& Johnston, 2008). Education regarding preparedness against natural disasters and other
crisis is lacking and should be taught and awareness raised (Berry & King, 1998).
FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, conducted a research in order to
evaluate their nation’s progress on personal preparedness and to measure the public’s
knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours relative to preparing for a range of hazards (FEMA,
2009). They found that 44% of the participants reported to have a household emergency plan
that included instructions for household members about where to go and what to do in the
event of disaster. Also close to 50% of the participants reported familiarity with alerts and
warning systems, however similar percentage reported being least familiar with community
evacuation routes and shelter locations.
Another study conducted by FEMA that focused on comparing multiple surveys regarding
the preparedness of people varied significantly based on who performed the study. For
example two studies based on similar questions regarding whether participants had an
emergency supply kit were conducted for the New York City area and the results varied from
23% (a study by Marist Institute of Public Opinion 2005) to 88% (a study by New York City
Office of Emergency Management 2005) (FEMA, 2005). The 2005 New York City OEM
survey indicated a large difference in participant’s perceived and actual preparedness. 55%
of the respondents said they felt informed or very informed about what to do in the event of
an emergency. However 14% of respondents said they had a household emergency plan
(FEMA, 2005). 36% of the respondents had emergency supplies, which included 3 days of
water and non-perishable food, a first-aid kit, flashlight, battery-operated radio, and personal
hygiene items. 52% of the respondents said they had some of these supplies and only 16%
said they had a “go-to” bag of supplies (FEMA, 2005). They found that 57% of participants
had supplies set aside in their home to be used only in the case of disaster and the most
frequent supplies were packaged food and water, flashlight, first aid kit and portable radio
(FEMA, 2005). FEMA mentions other surveys such as the 2004 King County Survey which
was conducted on item-by-item approach (FEMA, 2005). Their findings can be seen below
in Table 6-1.
Table 6-1: Findings on public preparedness from the 2004 King County Survey. Retrieved from
Butler and Safsak (2004).
55
As Table 6-1 demonstrates, people generally own a flashlight and other things people find
use for in their daily activities. While the usage of items listed in the table becomes more
specific or the item becomes more unlikely to be of use on day-to-day basis, the rate of
ownership towards the items decreases significantly.
The 2004/2005 Puget Sound Regional Survey found that 49% of parents said that their
children knew how to react during an emergency if the parents are not around and 48% had
discussed the plan with their children (FEMA, 2005). The 2003 Citizen Corps Survey
inspected how well prepared participants thought they were for three types of events with a
5-point scale. They found that 20% of people considered themselves ready for a terrorist
event, 28% for a natural disaster and 54% for household emergency. Further they found that
50% of people had some kind of emergency kit at their homes, 34% in their cars and 41% at
their work (FEMA, 2005).
Basolo et al. examined people’s perceived and actual preparedness for two types of hazard
risks: earthquake and hurricanes. They found people’s perceived preparedness was linked to
their assessment of local government’s competency to manage the consequences of a
disaster. Regarding actual preparedness they found that higher levels of confidence in local
government were associated with having a family plan which contradicted their hypotheses
(Basolo et al., 2009).
As these studies suggest the level of public preparedness can vary drastically. Where people
live, how many live in each home, etc. are factors that affect the outcome as well as who
constructs and conducts the surveys. Many of the studies further show that the perceived
preparedness of the public is often greater than their actual preparedness, which for the rest
of this chapter an attempt will be made to determine for the general public in Iceland.
56
6.2 Public preparedness survey
In this section an analysis of public preparedness will be performed. The analysis will be
based on a public survey of perceived and actual preparedness. The survey is divided into
two parts; perceived preparedness and actual preparedness.
6.2.1 Methodology
The public preparedness survey was constructed by taking into account people’s experience
from the case studies, with ideas that appeared during the theoretical identification and
speculation that appeared during the making of this thesis as well as considering similar
surveys conducted in other countries. The questionnaire distributed and modified with the
help of the Social Science department in the University of Iceland. Distribution was in the
form of email delivery and modifications were done with the help of social science experts
to ensure the questions were phrased correctly. The participant sample for the survey was
1200 people of which 713 people answered the survey. An attempt was made to distribute
the survey as evenly as possible in relation to gender, age, education, etc. Age of participants
was 18 years or older. Gender distribution was very good (around 50%), age distribution
was also good were the age group 46-55 (around 23%) had the highest response rate,
distribution of settlement was then 65% from the capital area and 35% outside the capital
area. The worst distribution related to the education level were 45% had a university degree
and 40% had a college degree.
6.2.2 Part 1 – Perceived preparedness
In this part of the survey an attempt was made to evaluate the perceived preparedness of the
general public. The question focused on how well prepared individuals felt they were for
certain crisis and their ability to help themselves and others.
Question 1 aimed to get participants perspective on their own preparedness. A simple Likert
scale was used, ranging from very well to very bad. Respondents were aware that the
electricity failure was from 24 hours up to one week. Well over half of the respondents (63%)
consider themselves rather or very badly prepared for such an event (Figure 6-1). Further,
only a small minority (14%) consider themselves rather or very well prepared.
Figure 6-1: Question 1: How well or bad do you consider yourself and/or your family preparedness to be
regarding a long duration electricity failure?
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
Very well Rather well Neither Rather bad Very bad
Perceived preparedness
57
Question 2 was a follow up question of Question 1. If people answered rather or very well
in Question 1 they were asked for further details regarding their preparedness. For this
question each answer was analysed. Elements that people pointed out to own and would help
them during the event were categorized. Elements were quantified by how often they
appeared in the answers. Most popular elements for preparedness turned out to be alternative
lighting (52 times) and alternative cooking (40 times) (Figure 6-2). This does not come as a
surprise since these aspects are most likely the most routine things that people need to think
about in their daily lives. What did come as a surprise is that people do not give
telecommunications much thought regarding preparedness for this event.
Figure 6-2: Question 2: Please describe how you and/or your family have prepared for long duration
electricity failure?
When asked how prepared respondents thought they were only a minority (14%) thought of
themselves as rather or very well prepared (Figure 6-1). However, when these 14% were
asked to point out elements that contribute to their preparedness interesting findings were
discovered (Figure 6-2). The dominating elements of what respondents referred to were
alternative lighting such as flash lights, candles, etc. and alternative cooking methods such
as gas stoves, etc. Alternative heating, extra food and drink and warm clothing appeared to
come second to the dominating aspects however a lot less. The results suggest that elements
of preparedness related to ICT are hardly given any thought and could be described as almost
non-existent.
Question 3 aimed to evaluate their confidence in helping others with certain aspects which
included food and drink, first aid, fuel, transport and offer people a place to stay. Fuel (15%)
and food and drink (47%) appear to be aspects that people are less capable of helping with
than with the rest (Figure 6-3). This could be because of the use of alternative fuel, apart
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Freq
uen
cy
Elements of preparedness
58
from what is used in transport, has decreased over the years and people stock less up on food
as they used to.
Figure 6-3: Question 3: If a long duration electricity failure were to happen, do you consider yourself being
able to assist others (for example, people in your neighbourhood) with the following aspects? The figure
shows which aspects they considered themselves being able to help with.
Question 4 was a follow up question of Question 3 and aimed to evaluate their confidence
in helping others with the same aspects as in Question 3 but for longer periods of time. For
this question, only those who responded that they could help with a certain aspects were able
to answer this question for these aspects. First aid was neglected, since it was considered
not to change with time. Shelter was the only aspect which people seemed being able to
assist with for extended electricity failure (Figure 6-4). This can be considered as natural
since food and drink, extra fuel and transport are all limited resources.
Figure 6-4: Question 4: For how long of a time period do you consider yourself being able to help the people
in your neighbourhood regarding the following aspects?
When respondents were asked about their perception of their assisting capabilities during an
electricity failure event the findings somewhat contradict the findings from their perceived
preparedness (Figure 6-3). At least 76% of respondents perceived themselves as being able
to assist with first aid, transport. Further 47% of respondents thought of themselves being
able to assist regarding shelter but only 15% regarding fuel such as oil, timber, gas, etc.
(Figure 6-3). When asked for how long they could assist with what was previously
mentioned, first aid was excluded, a rapid decrease in assisting capabilities appeared for food
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Food and drink First aid Fuel Transport Shelter
Assisting capabilities
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
< 1 week 1-2 weeks 2-3 weeks > 4 weeks
Assisting capabilities
Food and drink
Extra fuel
Transport
Shelter
59
and drink, fuel and transport (Figure 6-4). Shelter turned out to be the only aspect people
considered themselves being able to assist with long-term or more than 4 weeks.
Question 5 aimed to evaluate their confidence in infrastructure during certain types of
crisis/natural hazards. In this question the Likert scale was used ranging from very well to
very bad. The results show that people have great confidence towards infrastructures during
crisis (Figure 6-5). Not only confidence for electricity failure but a rather great consistency
appears for all the crisis/natural hazards. At least 72% demonstrate a rather good or a very
good trust in government when it comes to electricity failures, volcanic eruptions,
earthquakes and pandemics.
Figure 6-5: Question 5: How well or bad do you trust infrastructure (for example SAR, law enforcement,
government, distribution companies, etc.) to deal with the following crisis?
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Very well Rather well Neither Rather bad Very bad
Trust in infrastructures
Electricity failure
Volcanic eruption
Earthquake
Pandemic
60
6.2.3 Part 2 – Actual preparedness
In this part of the survey an attempt was made to evaluate the actual preparedness of the
general public. The question focused on items present at household that would help in case
of crisis, emergency plans for the household, etc.
Question 6 aimed to evaluate people’s law
awareness regarding crisis which relates to
certain age group of people being able to help
during crisis. Close to one third of the
respondents was familiar with these laws
which results in the majority of the public
ignorant regarding this matter (Figure 6-6).
This question does not demonstrate the
respondent’s knowledge of law regarding
crisis, civil defence, etc. in Iceland. However
the law was chosen due to its relation to the
public.
The next three questions (Q7, Q8 & Q9) in
part 2 were concerning household
contingency plans regarding electricity
failure and other possible crisis events.
Question 7 aimed to find out if individuals or
families had any contingency plans for
electricity failure events. A very low
percentage of respondents (6%) said they had
a contingency plan (Figure 6-7). These
findings are at the same time surprising and
not. The number of respondents claiming
they have a contingency plan is very low.
However, if one had to speculate the outcome
beforehand the difference in response would
have been similar but perhaps but perhaps
with few more respondents claiming they had
a plan.
Question 8 was a follow up question of
Question 7 and aimed to identify aspects of
the contingency plans. Respondents that
declared having a contingency plan were only able to answer this question. A variety of
aspects regarding contingency plans were detected when analysing the results. No aspect
turned out to be significantly more popular than others (Figure 6-8). Most surprising findings
were that though people had concluded from Question 7 that they had a plan only 3
respondents turned out to have something that could be considered as a defined plan. Further,
6%
94%
Household contingency plan
Yes
No
Figure 6-7: Question 7: Do you and/or your family
have any contingency plans for a long duration
electricity failure?
29%
71%
Law awareness
Yes
No
Figure 6-6: Question 6: Did you know that according
to law, the police can demand people from the ages
of 18-65 years old to help authorities during crisis?
61
for data representation purposes a category of not relevant occurred 21 times. That category
consisted of items resembling answers from Question 2 such as flash lights etc.
Figure 6-8: Question 8: Please describe what your contingency plan regarding long duration electricity
failure includes?
Question 9 aimed to find out if individuals had any contingency plans related to other
crisis/natural hazards. Though a rather small percentage of respondents say they have a
contingency plan it is clear that contingency plans for volcanic eruption are at least two times
more frequent than any other (Figure 6-7).
Figure 6-9: Question 9: Do you and/or your family have any contingency plans for the following crisis?
When asked if respondents had a contingency plan for their households only a small minority
(6%) stated that they had one (Figure 6-7). However when asked to describe what the
contingency plan included a variety of aspects appeared from the responses but from very
few respondents. Only three respondents turned out to have a contingency plan that could be
described as a defined or a solid contingency plan. Very few respondents included aspects
that could contribute to a contingency plan. Majority of the responses (21 responses) were
classified as not being relevant since those aspects that were pointed out related to much to
previous question regarding preparedness such as having a flash light or a candle. The most
popular response of an aspect for a contingency plan was alternative housing (3 responses)
which demonstrates the lack of aspects when looking at over all responses.
0
1
2
3
4
5
Aspects of contingency plans
0%
5%
10%
15%
Volcanic eruption Earthquake Pandemic
Other contingency plans
62
The next two questions (Q10 & Q11) were related to practical and useful items or equipment
during an electricity failure. Findings from the questions are displayed together in Figure 6-
10.
Question 10 aimed to find out what practical equipment with an item-by-item approach for
each household. Question 11 was a follow up question of Question 10 where the aim was to
identify if the items were easily reachable. Only respondents who declared owning certain
equipment/item were able to respond to accessibility of those particular items. As one might
wonder everyday items such as warm clothing, lighting equipment, flash light and first aid
kit are the most present in households (Figure 6-10). When items become less useful for
everyday routine such as walkie-talkies and power generators the ownership drops
drastically. The accessibility of the equipment/items turned out to be consistent and only
varies from around 60 to 80%.
Figure 6-10: Question 10: What of the following is present in your home? Question 11: What of the
following do you store in a certain place that you can access it during crisis?
When asked to identify which items, out of 18 items/equipment listed, were present in their
households interesting findings appeared. For 9 items/equipment a 50% or more ownership
ratio appeared from the 18 item list. Items such as warm clothing (99%), lighting equipment
(94%), etc. turned out to be what respondents owned in general. Ownership of equipment
related to ICT such as Touch-tone phones (32%) and handheld radios (11%) was rather
lacking except for a battery or hand powered radios which 60% of respondents had. Further,
a great consistency (60-80%) appeared when respondents were asked if the items/equipment
were located in an accessible place where they could easily get to them in case of emergency.
Further analysis shows that ownership of 10 items from the list was most common (87
respondents), the highest ownership was 18 items and that 14 respondents owned nothing.
Also, the average ownership rate of respondents that stated in Question 1 that they were well
prepared turned out to be around 11.4 items which was around 2 items more than for the
overall respondents. This analysis can be seen in Appendix D.
0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%
100%
Equipment in households
Present in household Accessible place
63
The next four questions (Q12, Q13, Q14 and Q15) were related to food supply in households.
The point was to see if people had any unperishable food and further if anything was set
aside for crisis events.
Question 12 aimed to evaluate the type of food and in what volume food exists in people’s
homes. Majority of respondents have either rather or very little food in general (Figure 6-
11). People determining they have a lot of food turn out to have mostly food that needs
cooling, both with short and long shelf life. Very few people own a lot of food with long
shelf life without the need for cooling.
Figure 6-11: Question 12: How much or little do you have of the following foods?
Question 13 aimed to get their evaluation of how long the food supply present in
respondent’s households would last. Majority of respondents (around 75%) value their food
supply either as enough for less than one week or from one to two weeks (Figure 6-12). Very
few responders (8%) consider themselves sustainable for more than four weeks.
Figure 6-12: Question 13: How long do you consider yourself and/or your family to be able to live long on
the food present in your household?
Question 14 aimed to determine if households were equipped with special supply of food to
use only during emergencies. Question 15 was a follow up question of Question 14
determining whether or not this specially stored food was upgraded on regular basis. Only
those who responded yes for Question 14 were able to answer Question 15. A very small
percentage (2%) of respondents turned out to have a special supply of food (Figure 6-13).
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Very much Rather much Rather little Very little
Food supply in households
Long shelf life, does not needcooking
Long shelf life, needs cooking
Short shelf life, needs cooling
Long shelf life, needs cooling
Short shelf life, needs room temp.
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
< 1 week 1-2 weeks 2-3 weeks > 4 weeks
Food supply in households
64
However, the majority (69%) of these 2% appeared to upgrade their supplies on a regular
basis (Figure 6-14).
Figure 6-13: Question 14: Do you have food stored
specially to use during crisis?
Figure 6-14: Question 15: Do you and/or your
family upgrade the specially stored food supply
regularly? (For example, once a year or every
other year).
When asked about food quantity in their households the majority of respondents have either
rather or very little food in general (Figure 6-10). People determining they have a lot of food
turn out to have mostly food that needs cooling both with short and long shelf life. Very few
people turned out to own a lot of food with long shelf life without the need for cooling.
Further when asked to evaluate how long they could live on the food present in their
household the majority of respondents (75%) valued their food supply either as enough for
less than one week or from one to two weeks of which 29% felt they had enough for 1 week
(Figure 6-12). Very few responders (8%) consider themselves sustainable for more than four
weeks. Further respondents were asked if they had a special food supply which only to use
in emergencies which revealed that only 2% of respondents claimed to that special supply
of food (Figure 6-13). Further analysis regarding food in households showed that no
respondent had “very much” of the five food categories presented and only 1 had “very
much” of 4 categories. Also, the ownership of special food supply was not noticeably
different between those stating they were prepared or the others. Only 7% of the prepared
appeared store that kind of food. This analysis can be seen in Appendix D.
The last questions (Q16 & Q17) focused on how aware people were regarding aspects needed
regarding crisis. It was concluded that medical skills and some knowledge of contingency
plans were useful attributes.
2%
98%
Special supply of food
Yes
No
69%
31%
Upgrade supplies
Yes
No
65
Question 16 aimed to evaluate people’s first aid
knowledge. The vast majority (89%) of
respondents declared that they or someone in
their family had taken a first aid course or
something similar. This is not surprising since a
lot of the general public serves in SAR, and
people are taught first aid classes in various jobs
and schools.
Question 14 aimed to see if people had
familiarized themselves with contingency plans
at all. Respondents were asked to answer
separately for national and regional contingency
plans. There turned out be consistency between
awareness regarding national contingency plans
and regional contingency plans (Figure 6-16) or
18% and 11% respectively. However the
findings demonstrate that the general public is very ignorant when it comes to contingency
plans. Further, it could come as a surprise that outcome for the national contingency plans is
slightly better than for regional contingency plans. However, when considering well known
hazards in Iceland such as volcanic activity and earthquakes it is understandable that people
would rather focus on such events regarding their preparedness.
Figure 6-16: Question 14: Have you familiarized yourself with the following?
Knowledge and awareness concerning certain subjects that were included in the survey lead
to various findings. When asked about a law regarding duties towards civilians during crisis
29% of the respondents claimed to know about it. 89% of the respondents claimed to have
knowledge of first aid or something similar. 18% of the respondents claimed to be informed
about national contingency plans and only 11% claimed they were informed about regional
contingency plans. Further analysis demonstrated that respondents stating that they were
well prepared were 100% familiar with first aid, 29% with national contingency plans and
14% with regional contingency plans. This analysis can be seen in Appendix D.
89%
11%
First aid knowledge
Yes
No
Figure 6-15: Question 16: Have you or anyone in
your family taken a first aid class, first responder
class or similar courses?
66
6.3 Stakeholder survey
In this section an analysis is presented on the confidence that government functions,
stakeholders, and the public protection agency show towards public preparedness and the
reliability of the electricity and ICT infrastructure. The questions were nine in total for this
survey.
The survey is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on identifying the respondents,
their role, experience etc. The second part focuses on their view towards the public and
infrastructure.
6.3.1 Methodology
The stakeholder survey was distributed towards certain companies, government agencies,
etc. Each stakeholder could contribute more than one respondent to the survey. This survey
was less formal than the public preparedness survey. The questionnaire was with emails to
the stakeholders containing a link to enable participants to answer. The Survey Monkey
online survey service was used for this survey. The survey was sent to total of twenty
stakeholders from which 9 responses were gathered. This survey did not address gender, age,
residence, etc. since its purpose was to receive expert opinion.
6.3.2 Part 1 – Stakeholders knowledge
Question 1 aimed to figure out how good the distribution of answers the survey would be.
Distribution of jobs appeared to be really good since each sector answered at least once
(Figure 6-17).
Figure 6-17: Question 1: What does your job relate to the most? Options where civil defence (green),
electricity distribution, ICT distribution, police, government agency and other.
Question 2 was represented to get some insight into the respondent’s job and see if their job
entailed anything related to emergency management which affected the public. The majority
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
Civil protection Electricdistribution
ICT distribution Police Governmentagency
Other
Occupation
67
of the respondents (89%) appeared to be have some emergency related duties and only 11%
of respondents had no such duties (Figure 6-18).
Figure 6-18 Question 2: Does your job include any duties that relate to response or emergency –
management that affects the public?
Question 3 was a follow up question of Question 2. This question asked respondents to
identify their main duties during emergencies. Duties of individual respondents varied which
makes better answers since people have knowledge in different fields (Figure 6-19).
Figure 6-19: Question 3: If yes, what are your main duties? Answers can be seen in Appendix CII.
Question 4 aimed towards individual respondent’s experience of electricity failure. The
majority of respondents (78%) appeared to have experience from their work that relates to
an emergency situation that has occurred from failure in electricity Figure (6-20). The
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Yes
No
Emergency related duties
25%
25%25%
25%
Main duties
Emergency communication
Electricity management
Crisis management
Other
68
outcome is viewed as good because of the potential experience the respondents may have
regarding public preparedness and the resilience of critical infrastructure.
Figure 6-20: Question 4: Do you have experience from work that relates to an emergency situation which
has occurred from electricity failure?
6.3.3 Part 2 – Stakeholders opinion
Question 5 aimed to get the respondents opinion on faults in the distribution system for
electricity and ICT. The main concerns regarding electricity and ICT distribution appeared
to relate to transmission lines being above ground and that emergency power is lacking
(Figure 6-21).
Figure 6-21: Question 5: What do you consider the main faults in electricity and ICT –distribution systems in
Iceland? Answers can be seen in Appendix CII.
Question 6 aimed to evaluate respondent’s opinion on the ability of infrastructures to
handle certain types of crisis. Respondents showed fair amount of trust (around 45%)
towards infrastructure during a shorter electricity failure (Figure 6-22). However for
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
Yes
No
Past experience
25%
17%
8%8%
42%
Faults in electricity and ICT distribution
Transmission lines aboveground
Insufficient EP, ICT especially
Undefined standards
Dependent infrastructures
Other
69
electricity failure longer than a week the majority of participants (around 66%) express
their lack of confidence in infrastructure dealing with the scenarios.
Figure 6-22: Question 6: How well or bad do you consider infrastructure (for example government, police,
electricity and ICT –distribution systems, SAR, etc.) in Iceland capable of dealing with the following? The
findings are displayed in percentage (%).
Question 7 aimed to get the respondents opinion on the preparedness of the general public.
Respondents demonstrated drastically their lack of confidence regarding public
preparedness. For a shorter electricity failure only 11% of respondents declare the public to
be rather or very well prepared and in a longer failure 100% of them declare the public as
unprepared.
Figure 6-23: Question 7: How well or badly prepared do you consider households (the general public) for
the following scenarios? The findings are displayed in percentage (%).
Question 8 aimed to get the respondents opinion on how well people are informed
regarding contingency plans. Respondents demonstrated lack of confidence regarding the
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
Very well Rather well Neither Rather bad Very bad
Trust in infrastructureElectricity failure,24h - 1 week
Electricity failure, >1week
Volcanic eruption
Earthquake
Pandemic
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Very well Rather well Neither Rather bad Very bad
Preparedness of households
Electricity failure, 24h -1 week
Electricity failure, >1week
Volcanic eruption
Earthquake
Pandemic
70
awareness of the general public. In both cases around 50% of respondents assume the
public rather or very badly aware of contingency plans.
Figure 6-24: Question 8: How well or badly do you consider households (the general public) informed
regarding the following aspects? The findings are displayed in percentage (%).
The last question, Question 9 aimed to identify roles for the general public during crisis.
Duties and responsibilities of the general public appeared to vary and are poorly defined
(Figure 6-25). Keeping away from hazardous zones, keep calm and try not to bother first
responders unless there is actual need for it can be viewed as their duties according to
responses.
Figure 6-25: Question 9: Can you make an example regarding what is expected of the public during times of
crisis? (For example duties, preparedness, how long people have to endure, etc.) Answers can be seen in
Appendix CII.
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
Very well Rather well Neither Rather bad Very bad
Household awareness
National contingencyplans
Regional contingencyplans
14%
29%
14%
14%
29%
Duties of households
Avoid hazardous zones
Stay were they are
Monitor anouncements
Avoid calling ES for minorsetbacks
Other
71
6.4 Results
This section will address the main results from the two surveys.
6.4.1 Public preparedness survey
Part 1 – Perceived preparedness
It turns out that respondents view their preparedness, regarding electricity failure, in general
as bad however their confidence in being able to assist others during such events appears to
be a lot higher. This could lead to the conclusion that respondents do not view their
preparedness as indicator of their ability to help others or their lack of understanding
regarding that they have to be able to manage themselves first in order to help others. Further,
the amount of respondents that demonstrate rather high or very high level of confidence
towards infrastructure in dealing with electricity failure is very close to the amount of
respondents that consider themselves as rather badly or very badly prepared (63%) for
electricity failure. This could lead to the conclusion that respondents do not feel the need to
be prepared for a crisis when they are confident that others will manage it for them.
Figure 6-26: Summary of findings from part 1 in the public preparedness survey.
Part 2 – Actual preparedness
For an estimate of actual preparedness there is no clear conclusion. However, the lack
contingency plans is clear since few people claim to have one. In most cases there appears
to be no plan even when people consider themselves to have a plan. Ownership of
items/equipment, which was assumed to be of help during crisis, appears to be relatively
high however lacking when it comes to ICT equipment and alternative source of electricity.
Regarding food most respondents estimated their food supply as little and appeared to own
more of food that relied on cooling when stored. Further, a special food supply for
emergency was almost non-existent. Knowledge and awareness regarding first aid was really
good however, when it comes to contingency plans the knowledge is really poor. Further
analysis showed that respondents stating they were rather or very well prepared were in fact
more prepared then the rest of the respondents. They generally owned more equipment, had
more knowledge of first aid and national contingency plans and were more likely to store
special food supply.
•Majority of respondents view themselves as unprepared.
•Majority of respondents which view themselves as prepared point out very few aspects which are concidered to enhance their preparedness.
Perceived preparedness
•Respondents viewed their assistent capabilities in general as rather good.
•Respondents are least capable to help with food and fuel.
Assistent capabilities
•Majority of respondents express confidence in infrastructure.Trust in infrastructure
72
Figure 6-27: Summary of findings from part 2 in the public preparedness survey.
In summary the actual preparedness could be viewed as poor or at the very best rather poor
except for ownership of equipment. However, owning various equipment which enhances
their preparedness and not knowing that it does contribute to the fact that the respondents
are poorly prepared. Respondents seem to perceive their preparedness as rather or very poor
which in this case is good since apparently they are not underestimating themselves.
6.4.2 Stakeholder survey
Part 1 – Stakeholders knowledge
Part 1 of the survey shows that the majority of participants are affiliated with emergency
situations regarding electricity failure to some extent. In a way that makes them a good
example of officials to express their opinion towards public preparedness. Further their
duties contribute to their expertise both in electricity and general ICT distribution as well as
emergency communication.
Part 2 – Stakeholders opinion
Part 2 of the stakeholder survey demonstrates clearly the lack of confidence from
government regarding certain aspects of public preparedness, especially when it comes to
electricity failure. Further the survey contributes to the lack of clearly stated duties that the
public should uphold during crisis. This corresponds to the comparison of the National Risk
Assessment Plans, Chapter 3, where this aspect is hardly addressed or not at all.
The survey also points out faults in the distribution systems in Iceland where the main factors
relate to the lack of emergency power and that transmission lines are above ground which
corresponds to one answer regarding certain aspects of the system being badly equipped to
handle bad weather. Further, it is clear that confidence from stakeholders regarding the
ability of critical infrastructure to function during electricity failure is a lot less than their
confidence towards the ability of critical infrastructure for other crisis such as volcanic
eruption and earthquakes. It is also interesting that the stakeholders have a lot more
confidence in infrastructure than in the general public. The statements made in the answers
•Majority of respondents state they don't have contingency plans.
•Majority of respondents that state they have a contingency plan appear not to have one when asked to point out aspects of their plan.
Contingency plans
•Ownership of units was rather high in general.
•Ownership of specialized and ICT related equipment was lacking.Equipment
•Majority of respondents estimated their food supply sufficient for either less than 1 week or 1-2 weeks.
•Ownership of food with long shelf life which did not require cooling was fairly little.
Food
•Knowledge of first aid was very high.
•Knowledge regarding contingency plans in general was lacking.
Knowledge and awareness
73
correspond towards what happened both in the theoretical impact identification and impacts
identified in the case studies.
6.4.3 Comparing to foreign surveys
When it comes to essential items or equipment such as flashlights, etc. results for Iceland
are very similar to other studies. However when it comes to a special supply kit or a
household plan Iceland is very far behind. The results further contradict the results from the
survey Basolo et al. (2009) conducted where high trust in government resulted in higher
level of preparedness, for Iceland this did not appear.
6.5 Surveys limitations
6.5.1 Public preparedness survey
One of the limitations of the public preparedness survey is that participants can change their
view on their perceived preparedness while/after they have answered the questions regarding
their actual preparedness. Another limitation is the amount of participants since 1200
participants correspond to around 0.35% of the general public in Iceland. Of these 1200
participants the response rate was around 60%.
6.5.2 Stakeholder survey
Main limitation of the stakeholder survey is the number of participants. Though the
participants come from various sectors and have experience regarding crisis it would be ideal
to have a larger response pool to analyse. The survey was sent to around 20
companies/agencies of which there were 9 replies.
6.6 Summary
In this chapter studies on public preparedness were discussed. They show that public
preparedness can vary greatly and furthermore results can be very different based on who
performs them. Two surveys were conducted in Iceland in relation to public preparedness.
One of them was distributed to the general public and the other one to stakeholders. Findings
suggest that public preparedness is rather lacking for the most part however a couple of
aspects suggest otherwise. Further, the results reveal that those who view themselves as
prepared appear to be more prepared than those who don’t and in very few cases individuals
are extremely well prepared.
74
75
7 Conclusion and discussion
Connectivity between households and critical infrastructures is highly complex. Households
as well as critical infrastructures, such as first responders, water supply, etc., are extremely
dependent on electricity to maintain normal operation. It is of the upmost importance that
key personnel and the general public are informed and well aware of the consequences which
can occur during an extensive failure in electricity infrastructure. Analysis in Chapter 3
showed that failure in electricity and ICT infrastructure can lead to various impacts on
households resulting in households being effected by every critical infrastructure. Impacts
caused directly on households by failure in electricity and ICT can include no lights or phone
service. Impacts caused indirectly by these failures include inadequate house heating where
insufficient electricity supply effects water distribution, and lack of emergency response
caused by ICT failure which originates from electricity failure.
Comparison of National Risk Assessment Plans in Iceland, Norway and Sweden revealed
that events causing failure in electricity and ICT infrastructure are covered in detail.
However, impacts that were discussed in Chapter 3 and the case studies are for the most part
poorly addressed or neglected. While Iceland includes a more detailed description of
infrastructures and natural hazards in general, Norway gives the most comprehensive
analysis on impact from failure in electricity. Sweden is the only country that includes a
detailed analysis on ICT infrastructure however that analysis is for a very specific system.
In Iceland especially, impact analysis are poorly performed and creation of specific scenarios
for these failures is lacking. This demonstrates the need to analyse impact from failure in
electricity infrastructure as well as ICT in much more detail. All the countries hardly address
the general public in the assessments. Expectations towards the general public during times
of crisis are given little thought and are almost non-existent.
The case studies carried out, for two electricity failure events in Iceland, demonstrated
clearly that critical infrastructures are highly vulnerable against both short- and long-term
failure in electricity infrastructure. The general public is more resilient against short-term
failures even though other aspects, such as time of year, weather, etc., can affect their
resilience. The case studies demonstrated the importance of functioning electricity as well
as ICT for the general public’s dependence on critical infrastructures. Further the importance
is especially clear in the second case study when failure in these systems collides with other
crisis for a significant amount of time. Other critical infrastructures that depend on electricity
but still service households, such as ICT, hot water etc., seem to be most threatening to
households. The strongest evidence of this is ICT failure in addition to snowed in
households, making them out of reach both in terms of communications and transport and
unable to receive help. Impacts caused directly from electricity on households turn out to
have less effect except when households rely on electricity for house heating. Further, the
case studies revealed a great lack of resilience of ICT and electricity infrastructure in terms
of emergency power. Conducting such case studies by actively analysing information from
such events while at the same time looking at them from a broad perspective, and ask “what
if”, a more comprehensive analysis can be made.
76
The surveys conducted in this thesis revealed that perceived preparedness of the general
public is not consistent with their confidence in helping others. Further, their answers to
certain question demonstrate a great lack of understanding of infrastructure electricity
dependence as well as which essentials are required during failure in electricity. The public’s
confidence in key personnel, such as response units, government, etc., to handle electricity
failure is very high while at the same time the confidence, from authorities, key personnel,
etc., in the public’s preparedness is very low. Further the stakeholder’s confidence in
infrastructures during electricity failure is lower than from the general public. Aspects such
as owning essential equipment and knowledge of first aid contribute towards a rather good
actual preparedness of the general public. However, other aspects such as their lack of
understanding consequences, contingency plans and food suggests their preparedness is
poor. Compared to other studies conducted on public preparedness the preparedness of the
general public in Iceland is similar regarding essential equipment they own. However, when
comparing these studies regarding others aspects of preparedness such as having a plan to
follow when crisis occur the findings suggest that the general public in Iceland gives
preparedness little thought.
From conducting this thesis it appears that households as well as critical infrastructures in
general operate poorly when electricity and ICT are not present. Resilience against electricity
failures of both subjects needs to be improved. Infrastructures should be able to function for
a longer period of time on emergency power and households need to improve their
preparedness in order to fully function during these failures. Further studies regarding this
subject should include detailed analysis on infrastructure resilience in order to make them
more robust. Risk Assessment Plans should include the general public specifically, their
roles and required preparedness level should be specified. Impact identification from
electricity and ICT failures on households should be performed in far greater detail,
especially in Iceland. Investigation into public preparedness should be conducted in order to
get better understanding regarding the actual preparedness of the general public. Authorities
should focus on presenting educational material to the general public and raise awareness
regarding possible consequences from these types of events and other crisis. Public
preparedness must be increased in order to form a more functional society during crisis.
77
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83
Appendix A
Appendix A will describe the major organizations that distribute electric energy in Iceland,
their main purpose and areas they operate. There are a few others that are neglected in these
listings however it should give broad vision of the market.
A-I
Electricity distribution
The main purpose of Landsnet is to handle distribution and handling of the electric network.
More accurately their purpose can be listed as:
“Ensure balance between supply and demand of electric power.
Be responsible for the operational safety of the distribution network as a whole.
Maintain the capability of the network over a long time and shape the future of the
network in the country.
Ensure accessibility to the network promote increased activity in the electric
market” ((Landsnet, 2011).
Landsnet owns and operates all the main transmission lines in Iceland. “The highest voltage
that is distributed is 220 kV. A large part of the network is 132 kV and parts of it are 66 kV
and 33 kV. Some of their lines in the South-West part of the country have been constructed
to handle 420 kV but they are operated at 220 kV” (Landsnet, 2013). However higher voltage
is transported to heavy industrial companies such as aluminium smelters.
Orkuveita Reykjavíkur focuses mainly on selling hot water and electricity. “They serve the
capital area, Reykjavík, Kópavogur, Mosfellsbær, and Garðabær and also Akranes, which
makes up for around half the population in Iceland” (Reykjavíkur, 2013).
Rarik is one of the larger companies in Iceland that handles electric power distribution. It
was founded in 2006 and is owned by the government. The main focus of the company
today is electric distribution but Rarik has also contributed to development and construction
of electric distribution in the countryside which Rarik operates 90% of. Rariks distribution
network reaches to all parts of the country and also to 43 towns. The distance of their
distribution system is 8000km long, 43% of which is underground. Rarik also owns and
operates five hitaveitur (Rarik, 2009).
HS Orka produces and sells electricity and hot water to many parts of the country, to homes
and industry. They operate two geothermal plants, Svartsengi (75 MW) and
Reykjanesvirkjun (100 MW), and were the first in Iceland to produce electricity alongside
with geothermal production (Orka, 2010)
In this appendix a summary from each report from the jurisdictions in Iceland can be found.
The summary contains material that was pointed out regarding electricity and ICT stability
in each region.
84
A-II
Regional risk assessments
Electric power failure was considered little since Akranes is located near one Landsnets
substations called Brennimelur and the fact that electric distribution lines are under ground.
Just a year after that assessment was made the substation at Brennimelur malfunctioned
resulting in power failure in Akranes. Water supply was not considered threatened in terms
of power failure since power backup had been established to the purification and distribution
systems (A. Lögreglustjórinn, 2011). One year after the assessment came out there was a
power failure in Akranes when the substation in Brennimelur malfunctioned.
Phone connection is good and present everywhere in the region. It is either copper or fibre
optic –cables. General emergency units in the area rely on TETRA communications and
there is one transmitter that covers the whole region. There are minimum blinds spots in the
area when it comes to the TETRA system. VHF transmitters from the Search and Rescue
teams are also present in the area however the emergency response units have switch over
to TETRA. It is noted that work was being done to switch over to fibre optic cables
completely. Television broadcasting is transmitted through antenna and fibre optic cables
(A. Lögreglustjórinn, 2011)
Figure A-1: Region 1 containing Akranes in Iceland. Retrieved from Almannavarnir.
Electric distribution for this region is mainly in the hands of RARIK. The region gets power
from a few transmission lines owned and operated by Landsnet and are also equipped with
a hydro power plant called Andakílsárvirkjun. In the region power failure is not considered
as a possible threat and blackouts occur rarely (B. Lögreglustjórinn, 2011). Scenarios for
electric power failure are not considered nor consequences. Furthermore nothing is
mentioned about emergency power in the region nor the effect of power failure on curtain
infrastructure.
Phone network is through a landline to most houses in the region and GSM network covers
most areas in the region. According to Neyðarlínan the TETRA coverage is good in the
region however blinds spots can occur because of landscape. Search and Rescue units in the
area operate a few VHF and TETRA transmitters (B. Lögreglustjórinn, 2011). Skoða
samfélagsöryggi
85
Figure A-2: Region 2 containing Borgarbyggð, Dalabyggð, Hvalfjarðarsveit and Skorradalsreppur in
Iceland. Retrieved from Almannavarnir.
There are two power plants in the region, Rjúkandavirkjun 849 KW and Múlavirkjun 3100
KW. In Grundarfjörður schools and swimming pools are heated with oil and electricity is
mainly used for house heating. There is emergency power located in Grundarfjörður,
Ólafsvík (Rjúkandavirkjun) and Stykkilshólmur, the amount of power is not specified except
that Rjúkandavirkjun has 849 KW capacity. It is however acknowledged that emergency
power for water distribution and the distribution system is required and to strengthen
protections around transformers (S. Lögreglustjórinn, 2011).
The GSM network in the region has many blind spots on the main road around the region.
The TETRA network contributes a lot and covers more region and fibre optic cables are
present in towns. However there is not backup for the fibre optic cable in the region (S.
Lögreglustjórinn, 2011), which is being worked on (J. Á. Sigurjónsson, 2015). Search and
Rescue units in the region still rely on VHF. Long-wave transmitting is still in the region but
fewer people have equipped that supports that technology. It is also noted that many
telecommunication transmitters and fibre optic cables not well protected in the region (S.
Lögreglustjórinn, 2011). The threat of communication breakdown in the region was
considered as probable.
Figure A-3: Region 3 containing Snæfellsnes. Retrieved from Almannavarnir.
In the winter distribution of electricity in this area is considered unsafe especially outside of
the towns which most of contain emergency power generators. In Ísafjörður the waste water
treatment relies on two pumps which rely on electricity. Vestfirðir rely on power from the
main transmission line in the national grid and from a few hydro power plant, the largest on
being Mjólkárvirkjun. It is noted that power distribution safety for the region is being
considered by the ministry of the interior. In the region heating is based on electricity for the
86
most part. The threat of power failure in the region was considered as high threat (á. V.
Lögreglustjórinn, 2011).
Phones network in the region is both through landlines and microwaves and fibre optic
cables lies on land and through the sea. TETRA transmitters cover the area quite well
however because of the landscape in the region there are quite a few blind spots in the
coverage and the highways included. VHF is also operational in the area if needed (á. V.
Lögreglustjórinn, 2011). The threat of a communication breakdown in the region was not
evaluated.
Figure A-4: Region 4 containing Vestfirði. Retrieved from Almannavarnir.
In the region there is a 150 MW hydro power plant called Blönduvirkjun. The power plant
is connected to the main transmission line is Iceland. Emergency power is present in
Skagaströnd for the Town’s use. In Blönduós and Hvammstangi there is emergency power
for the hospitals and for most of distribution except for cold water in Blönduós. The threat
of electric power failure was considered possible. Cases regarding causes for power failure
where a damn breaks, which Landsvirkjun has contingency plan for (á. B. Lögreglustjórinn,
2011).
Phone network is present through landlines in most households in the region and the GSM
network covers most areas. The worst connection appears to be in valleys. The TETRA
network covers the area quite well except for a few blind spots and the fire department and
the Search and Rescue teams in the region use both VHF and TETRA (á. B.
Lögreglustjórinn, 2011). The threat of communication breakdown in the region was believed
not to be worth considering.
Figure A-5: Region 5 containin, Blönduós (town), Húnavatnshrepp, Húnaþing vestra, Skagabyggð and the
municipality Skagaströng. Retrieved from Almannvarnir.
87
The countries main distribution line goes through the region. A single line transports
electricity to Sauðárkrókur. Rarik handles distribution of electricity within the region. There
are two power stations in the region, one in Sauðárkrókur and one in Brimnes. There is one
hydro power plant in the region called Skeiðfossvirkjun 480 KW (á. S. Lögreglustjórinn,
2011). There are emergency diesel engines in Sauðárkrókur. The hot water supply has
emergency power for their pumps and the hospital has one solely for itself. The threat of
power failure in the region is considered as possible and the need to ensure emergency power
in the region and Sauðárkrókur especially is required (á. S. Lögreglustjórinn, 2011). Nothing
is mention about communication in the region except that it is noted that TETRA is present.
Figure A-6: Region 6 containing Akrahreppur and municipality Skagafjörður. Retrieved from Almannvarnir.
The main power distribution for Akureyri and the nearby towns comes from a distribution
line in Laxá (e. Salmon River) in Aðaldal (e. Main Valley) and from the country’s main
transmission line. Some of the other towns are dependent on small hydro power plants
nearby. Main distributors of electricity in the region is RARIK and Norðurorka (á. A.
Lögreglustjórinn, 2011). Emergency power is present in some form for different towns in
the region. In Akureyri the police department and the hospital are equipped with emergency
power however the fire department is not. In Dalvík there is emergency power for hot and
cold water supply. Ólafsfjörður is equipped with a 300 KW power station and Siglufjörður
has the hospital equipped with emergency power along with 70% of other needs (á. A.
Lögreglustjórinn, 2011). No possible scenarios are mentioned as possible threats to power
failure however it is mentioned that one of the dams failed in 2006 and has been repaired
Phones network in the region is considered to be good and is mostly underground. Broadcast
relay stations are quit frequent in the region. The GSM network is not fully secured in the
region and the TETRA network needs improvement around the coastline. Fibre optic cables
are present in some of the larger towns. It is noted that the fire department has once been
without communication with Neyðarlínana, for a whole day, in the capital area where a fibre
optic cable malfunctioned (á. A. Lögreglustjórinn, 2011). According to the assessment the
GSM network in the region needs improvements along with the previously mentioned
improvements on the TETRA network (á. A. Lögreglustjórinn, 2011). Risk of
communication breakdown in the area is not evaluated in the region.
88
Figure A-7: Region 7 containing Akureyri, Eyjafjarðarsveit, Dalvíkurbyggð, Fjallabyggð, Grýtubakkahrepp,
Hörgársveit and Svalbarðsstrandahrepp. Retrieved from Almannvarnir.
Rarik handles the distribution of electricity in the region. There are a few geothermal and
hydro power plants in the region which cover most of the power usage for the region.
The region contains a lot of volcanic activity, one large eruption under a glacier,
Gjálpargosið 1996, destroyed a fairly large part of electric lines and phones lines. In 2009 a
mudslide fell on a private home power station. Accumulation of ice on power lines is
considered a threat to power failure in the region. Work is in progress to use underground
power lines (H. Lögreglustjórinn, 2011). Emergency power in the region is 0,5 MW in
Húsavík for hospitals, police station and municipality offices, 1,5 MW in Raufarhöfn, 2,3
MW in Þórshöfn and a power station in Bakkafjörður which meets the village’s needs. The
threat of power failure in the region is considered as a possible threat (H. Lögreglustjórinn,
2011).
The GSM network in the area has known blind spots that need improvement, however the
network has been getting better and it covers quite a large part of the highlands. The TETRA
network is also quite good in the region except for two places which have to be improved.
The VHF network will still be operated by the Search and Rescue units in the area. Internet
connection is quite good in urban areas but wireless in rural areas (H. Lögreglustjórinn,
2011). The threat of communication breakdown in the region is considered as a possible
threat and it is noted that telecommunications need to be improved in several areas (H.
Lögreglustjórinn, 2011).
Figure A-8: Region 8 containing Langanesbyggð, Norðurþing, Skútustaðahrepp, Svalbarðshrepp,
Tjörneshrepp and Þingeyjarsveit. Retrieved from Almannavarnir.
Power usage in the region is mostly from the country’s main transmission line. There are
several power plants in the region, the largest being Kárahnjúkavirkjun 690 MW. Many
homes are dependent on electricity for house heating in the region. Electric distribution
safety is not stable in the countryside outside of towns (í. S. Lögreglustjórinn, 2011).
89
Emergency power is present in Seyðisfjörður, Vopnafjörður and Borgarfjörður eystri (í. S.
Lögreglustjórinn, 2011). The threat of power failure is considered significant in the region.
No special contingency plans are present and emergency personal are activated if needed.
Nothing is specified regarding emergency power regarding lifesaving operations, hospitals,
police etc. It is also worth mentioning that few of the hydro power plants eru teknar út fyrir
hryðjuverkum eða sabotage.
According to the assessment emergency communications are TETRA and VHF networks
are used (í. S. Lögreglustjórinn, 2011). The need for risk assessment was not considered
relevant in the region, or as a small threat.
Figure A-9: Region 9 containing Borgarfjarðarhrepp, Fljótsdalshérað, Fljótsdalshrepp,
Seyðisfjarðarkaupstað and Vopnafjarðarhrepp. Retrieved from Almannavarnir.
Main power plants in the region are Smyrlabjörg 1.5 MW, Rafveita Reyðarfjarðar and one
in Eskifjörður. Electric distribution is quite good except in very bad weather during winter.
Norðfjörður, Fáskrúðsfjörður and Stöðvarfjörður are equipped with emergency power diesel
generators. Some transmission lines in Breiðamerkursandur are vulnerable to land erosion.
It is noted that the need may rise for ships to be the source of electric power for Höfn í
Hornafirði in case of power failure from sea floods. Water supply seems to be quite regarding
emergency power, both Fjarðarbyggð and Hornafjörður, since distribution of electricity is
not guaranteed in the region. Nothing is mentioned about emergency power for water supply
in Eskifjörður, Neskaupsstaður and Reyðarfjörður. Electric distribution lines are also in
danger from river/glacial floods in the region. The threat from electric power failure in the
region is not evaluated at all (E. Lögreglustjórinn, 2011).
Many areas in the region lack TETRA, GSM and radio –connection. In the West part of the
region the TETRA is good except for one place. VHF network is used by the Search and
Rescue units but the integrity of the network is not mentioned (E. Lögreglustjórinn, 2011).
Iimprovements on the networks mentioned above are needed and telecommunication in road
tunnels needs to be secured (E. Lögreglustjórinn, 2011). The threat of communication
breakdown is not valuated in particular.
90
Figure A-10: Region 10 containing Breiðdalshreppur, Djúpavogshreppur, Fjarðabyggð and the municipality
Hornafjörður. Retreived from Almannavarnir.
The region contains a large part of all electric production in Iceland. Rarik handles electric
distribution within the region. The east part of the country does not have fully guaranteed
power distribution (H. Lögreglustjórinn, 2011). Emergency power is present in
Krikjubæjarklaustur and Vík í Mýrdal, no operators are present (H. Lögreglustjórinn, 2011).
There are also private power stations in Þorvaldseyri and Neðri-Dalur. The threat of power
failure in the region is considered as possible and the documentation of emergency power
was found to be needed.
Phone network in the region is bad in some areas an on the countryside internet connection
is rather bad. The TETRA network is not secured in the region but its worst part is in the
eastern part of the region. Telecommunication in the highlands of the region is not good. In
case of emergency the TETRA network is used by emergency units in the region (H.
Lögreglustjórinn, 2011). The importance of a reliable communication network in the region
is noted to be critical because of threats from volcanic eruption and glacial floods (H.
Lögreglustjórinn, 2011). The threat of a communication breakdown in the region is
considered as a possible threat.
Figure A-11: Region 11 containing Ásahrepp, Mýrdalshrepp, Rángárþing eystra, Rangárþing ytra and
Skaftárhrepp. Retrieved from Almannavarnir.
In the region emergency power is present in few forms. Pumps for water distribution, the
hospital and collage and the fishing industry all have backup power. HS Veitur handle the
distribution of hot water in the region and are equipped with emergency power. Furthermore
heat from waste disposal in Vestmannaeyjar is used for house heating. Large part of the cold
water supply comes from the mainland and if power failure should happen there a shortage
of cold water would be a reality for Vestmannaeyjar. The threat of a power failure was
considered as significant and the scenario considered was a glacial flood through Markarfljót
from a volcanic eruption in Katla (V. Lögreglustjórinn, 2011).
91
Phone and internet network in the region is through fibre optic cables and microwaves. The
microwave connection is mainly for emergencies as a backup system. One location in the
islands that is important to these networks called Klifið and is vulnerable to sabotage and
natural disasters (V. Lögreglustjórinn, 2011). The threat of a communication breakdown is
considered as a possible threat and the importance of Klifið is mentioned.
Figure A-12: Region 12 containing Vestmannaeyjar. Retreived from Almannavarnir.
Rarik handles most of electric distribution for the region. There are known cases of electric
masts falling down because of bad weather and ice accumulation. Failure of power was not
considered as a threat in the region and no grounds for further investigation regarding the
subject. Furthermore nothing is mentioned regarding emergency power for any
infrastructure (Lögreglustjóri, 2011).
Regarding the safety of telecommunication in the region nothing is mentioned about the
possibility of that kind of threat. It is mentioned that no special plans are needed and also
that the TETRA and VHF networks are used in case of emergency (Lögreglustjóri, 2011).
Figure A-13: Region 13 containing Bláskógabyggð, Flóahrepp, Grímsnes- and Grafningshrepp,
Hrunamannahrepp, Hveragerðisbæ, Skeiða- og Gnúpverjahrepp and the municipalities Árborg and Ölfus.
Retreived from Almannavarnir.
HS Orka handles distribution of electricity and hot water supply in the region. They also
own and operate a few geothermal power plants. Volcanic eruption in the region could stop
distribution of electricity along with hot and cold water (S. Lögreglustjórinn, 2011).
Emergency power is present for the fire department in Grindavík and the main hospital for
the region. The national airport also has backup power for several of their buildings along
with the runway lights. Hot water supply station in Fitjar can draw power from two separate
lines. Furthermore fish farms have backup power along with a privately owned data centre
(S. Lögreglustjórinn, 2011). The threat from a power failure in the region is considered as a
possible threat.
92
The TETRA network in the region has got a good coverage however the GSM network does
have a few blind spots and does not handle rush hours i.e. carnivals. The usage of satellite
phones for critical locations in the region is pointed out (S. Lögreglustjórinn, 2011). The
threat of a communication breakdown in the region is considered as a significant threat.
Figure A-14: Region 14 containing Grindavíkurbæ, Reykjanesbæ, Sandgerðisbæ and the municipalities
Garður and Vogar. Retrieved from Almannavarnir.
It is noted that power failure could have very serious effects on traffic in urban areas.
Inturruption electric and water production for the area could lead to crisis
(almannavarnarástands). The threat was valued as small to a significant threat depending on
the municipality. Nothing is mention conserning emergency power in the region (á. H.
Lögreglustjórinn, 2011).
Great danger can arise in case of communication breakdowns espiecally for the operation of
emergency units which operate in live saving operations. Furthermore it is noted that
communcation breakdown to other countries could resault in a great financial lost for many
organizations (á. H. Lögreglustjórinn, 2011). The threat of communication breakdown was
evaluated in five municipalities in the region from litle to a possible threat. No weak spots
in the networks are mentioned nor possible scenarios which they would fail in.
Figure A-15: Region 15 containing Álftanes, Garðabæ, Hafnarfjörð, Kópavog, Mosfellsbæ, Reykjavík and
Seltjarnarnes. Retrieved from Almannavarnir.
93
A-III
Summary on contingency plans
When looking at contingency plans, one can only speculate on what is expected from the
public. In these plans it is highly emphasised that distribution of information should be as
much as possible towards the public from personnel dealing with the crisis. Information on
such issues as closed roads or areas and home quarantine. For example a ban on the gathering
of people and that people should not travel to places that many have been known to be
deceased is mentioned in the case of influenza outbreak (Almannavarnir, 2008). These
statements could lead to the conclusion that the public has a part to play in following
guidelines or rules regarding certain crisis events.
Further distribution of information during crisis would consist of educational material
towards the public on how to deal with that crisis. This emphasises the importance of the
general public to actually follow media, news and other official statements made during the
crisis. Further in contingency plans regarding a damn failure in Hálslón and a volcanic
eruption in Eyjafjallajökull it is emphasised that rescue is needed for people who are still in
dangerous zones (Lögreglustjórinn, 2013); (Almannavarnadeild, 2009). Here one could
conclude that it is the responsibility of the public to uphold evacuation plans, report
weather they have made it out of danger zones or are still trapped and further, to stay out of
known dangerous zones during high risk periods.
94
95
Appendix B
B-I
Appendix B contains further description of locations affected by the electricity failure in the
Brennimelur case study.
Akranes is an old port town in the West part of Iceland. The population is around 6700
making it the largest town in West part of Iceland. The main source of employment is
through the fishing industry. To Akranes lies a 17km transmission line, called the Akranes
line, which travels from Brennimelur to Akranes. It is the main source of electric power for
people living in Akranes.
Vegamót, Vogaskeið and Grundarfjörður are all located on Snæfellsnes which is a part of
West Iceland. Vegamót and Vogaskeið are parts of Snæfellsnes that have very few residents
and no large towns. Grundarfjörður on the other hand has a population of almost 900 people
located in the north part of Snæfellsnes and is quite isolated. The transmission line that leads
to Grundarfjörður is in fact three lines. They are the Vegamóta line 1 (64km), Vogaskeiðs
line 1 (25km) and Grundarfjarðar line 1 (35km).
Hvolsvöllur is a small town located in the South part of Iceland with a total populations of
860 people. It plays a big part in servicing farmers who live in the area and tourists who are
passing through on their way to Vatnajökull national park. There are two transmission lines
that lead to Hvolsvöllur. One is from Búðarháls, a hydro power plant, called Hvolsvallarlína
1 (45km) and the other called Hellulína 2 (13km) from Hella a small town near Hvolsvöllur.
Rimakot is a substation for the transmission line Rimakotslína 1 (22km) on its way to
Vestmannaeyjar. There are two transmission lines going from Rimakot to Vestmannaeyjar
which are called Vestmannaeyjarlína 1 (15km) and 3 (16km). Vestmannaeyjar are islands
south of Iceland with a population around 4300 people. Their main source of electric power
comes from the mainland on these two transmission lines over the see.
Breiðidalur is located in the Westfjords, more accurately in Önundarfjörður. Electricity is
distributed to Breiðidalur from Mjólkárvirkjun trough the main distribution network. There
the voltage is reduced from 132 kV to 66 kV before going on a transmission line called
Breiðadalslína 1. There is a substation that delivers electricity to Bolungarvík (950 habitants)
and Ísafjörður which has around 3400 habitants, making it the largest town in the Westfjords.
The electric power that goes through Breiðidalur comes from the hydro power plant in
Mjólká as well as the main power network which connects to the power plant. From
Breiðidalur lie two transmission lines, Ísafjarðarlína 1 which goes to Ísafjörður and
Bolungarvíkurlína 1 which goes to Bolungarvík. Ísafjörður and Bolungarvík are also
connected with a transmission line called Bolungavíkurlína 2. Breiðadalslína 1 and parts of
Ísafjarðalína 1 are equipped to handle 132 kV (Landsnet, 2007).
Keldeyri is located in the southern Westfjords. The substation at Keldeyri is connected to
the only transmission line in the southern Westfjords coming from Mjólkárvirkjun. In
Mjólkárvirkjun the voltage from the main distribution network is reduced from 132 kV to
66kV. Keldeyri supplies Patreksfjörður, around 650 inhabitants, with electricity through a
transmission line owned by Orkubú Vestfjarða (Landsnet, 2007).
96
Brennimelur was one of the locations and was described in the beginning of Section 4.1.1.
Selfoss is the largest town in the southern Iceland with around 6500 inhabitants. It is located
on the banks of Ölfusá and has Icelands main road (the ring road) going through it. Selfoss
is connected with the hydro power plant in the river Sogið through a transmission line called
Selfosslína 1 and also to Hella through Selfosslína 2.
Austurland is a name for the whole East part of Iceland which roughly covers the area from
the south of Skaftafell under Vatnajökull (glacier) to Þórshöfn in the northeast. Austurland
is connected to the distribution network on two sides, from the north and from the south
(both single 132 kV lines). In Fljótsdalur there is a hydro power plant called Kárahnjúkar
that has 690 MW capacity (Landsvirkjun, 2015) and supplies the aluminium smelter in
Reyðarfjörður with electricity.
Vestfirðir or the Westfjords is a special part of Iceland and covers the area northwest of
Hrútafjörður and North of Snæfellsnes. The Westfjords are connected to the distribution grid
with a single 132 kV transmission line and the hydro power plant in Mjólká.
Norðurál is an aluminium smelter located on the north side of Hvalfjörður in Grundartangi,
close to Iceland’s main road and Brennimelur. It is owned by Century Aluminium located in
Illinois in the USA and has been from 2004. Norðuráls production has gone up to 290,000
tons of aluminium and is one of the largest industry company in Iceland. It is connected to
the electric distribution network through the substation at Brennimelur (Norðurál, 2011).
Elkem has been operating since 1979 in Grundartangi and is owned by Elkem AS in Norway
and produces ferrosilicon (Elkem). Like Norðurál, Elkem connects to the distribution
network through the substation at Brennimelur.
B-II
Duration of power failure and interruption
On the 10th of January the interruptions started at 18:23:10 and lasted until 00:00 (end of that
day). For the nine main locations the longest duration of the interruptions occurred at
Brennimelur for 2.6 hours and the shortest at Vegamót / Vogaskeið / Grundarfjörður for 0.18
hours. Selfoss was neglected in terms of lowest value since it was 0 hours. Mean value of
power interruption was 0.54 hours, see Figure B-16.
97
0,00
0,50
1,00
1,50
2,00
2,50
3,00
[Ho
urs
]
Location
Duration of interruption
10. jan
10. jan mean
Figure B-16: Duration of electric down time from start of the incident to 00:00 for January 10th.
On the 11th of January the interruptions continued from 00:00 until the crisis was resolved
at 09:27:26 in the morning. The longest duration of interruption on this day was at Vegamót
/ Vogaskeið / Grundarfjörður for 0.167 hours and the shortest at Selfoss when all zero values
are neglected. Mean value of power interruption was 0.033 hours, see Figure B-17.
0,00
0,02
0,04
0,06
0,08
0,10
0,12
0,14
0,16
0,18
[Ho
urs
]
Location
Duration of interruption
11. Jan
11. jan mean
Figure B-17: Duration of electric down time from 00:00 to 09:27 for January 11th.
As the seen in the figures above the power interruptions are far shorter on the 11th then on
the 10th of January. This can be explained by the fact that mitigation methods had already
been applied on the evening of January 10th and continued throughout the night in order to
control the situation and reduce the further failures in the electric grid.
98
Other locations which experienced limited power or power failure are listed in the graph
below. The duration of interruption that they experienced are listed in the column chart
below, see Figure B-18. The chart demonstrates very clearly that Elkem suffered most from
the power loss and for businesses in the aluminium industry that can be very harmful.
Figure B-18: Two country parts (Austurland and Vestfirðir) and two energy intensive industries (Norðurál
and Járnblendifélagið) affected by the power failure during the Brennimelur event.
Figure B-19 shows how the aluminium smelters were affected by the power failure.
Norðurál, Járnblendið (Elkem) and Alcan were the first once to experience power failure.
Alcan could still operate at low capacity however Norðurál and Elkem experienced complete
power failure, Elkem longer than Norðurál. Alcan had some fluctuations in their electricity
but was soon stabilised. Norðurál started to get power back around 10:00 PM and kept
getting better until around 7 am where it experienced a sudden drop in power which was
quickly resolved. Alcoa Fjarðarál experienced no real interruptions except just before the
power failure was resolved which was probably on request from Landsnet. Becromal did not
0,00
2,00
4,00
6,00
8,00
10,00
12,00
14,00
Austurland Vestfirðir Norðurál Járnblendifélag
Areas affected by limited power
99
experience any disturbances worth mentioning.
Figure B-19: Electricity used by different aluminium smelters in Iceland. Retrieved from Landsnet.
B-III
Events and mitigation methods
In this section an attempt was made to analyse and quantify the events that occurred
spontaneously in the electric grid and the mitigation methods that were made to prevent
further failures and restore the network.
Events that occurred in the distribution network from the incident in Brennimelur were
mainly power outages which happened 46 times throughout the night and were the cause for
power failure around the country which happened 14 times, see Figure B-20.
100
Figure B-20: Spontaneous events in electricity distribution, power outages (46) and power failure (14).
Mitigation methods are of the upmost importance for companies like Landsnet when reacting
to situations such as these. As seen in the column chart below the number of mitigations,
Figure B-21, outweigh the number of spontaneous events, Figure B-20, in the electric grid.
This could explain how well Landsnet managed to deal with the problem and control it
considering bad weather conditions and the size of the area that went out of service.
Figure B-21: Mitigation methods, restoring power (65), failing in restoring power (8), power switches (8)
that occurred during the Brennimelur event.
Figure B-21 shows mitigation methods by Landsnet. The act of restoring power was
performed most often, 61 times and 72 times in total if counted the times that did not work
at all.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
Útleysing Straumleysi
Spontaneous events in the distribution network and causes
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Mitigation methods made by Landsnet
101
Appendix C
C-I
Appendix CI contains the questioner for the public preparedness survey that was conducted
in this research.
Spurningalisti – GMP
[Allir]
Spurning 1. Hversu vel eða illa telur þú þig og/eða fjölskyldu þína vera undirbúna fyrir
langvarandi rafmagnsleysi á heimilinu?
Miðað er við að langvarandi rafmgnsleysi standi yfir í 24 klst og allt að viku
a) Mjög vel
b) Frekar vel
c) Hvorki vel né illa
d) Frekar illa
e) Mjög illa
f) Veit ekki
g) Vil ekki svara
[Ef spurning 1=a eða b]
Spurning 2. Vinsamlegast lýstu því hvernig þú og/eða fjölskylda þín hafið undirbúið
þig/ykkur fyrir langvarandi rafmagnsleysi? _____________________
Miðað er við að langvarandi rafmagnsleysi standi yfir í 24 klst og allt að viku
[Allir]
Spurning 3. Ef til langvarandi rafmagnsleysis kæmi, telur þú þig geta aðstoðað aðra (t.d.
fólk í hverfinu sem þú býrð í) með eftirfarandi atriði?
Já Nei Veit ekki Vil ekki
svara
Mat og drykk 1 2 88 99
Auka eldsneyti (gas,
olíu, timbur og
fleira)
1 2 88 99
Skyndihjálparaðstoð 1 2 88 99
Flutning milli staða 1 2 88 99
Húsaskjól 1 2 88 99
102
[Ef spurning 3=1]
Spurning 3b. Í hvað langan tíma telur þú að þú gætir aðstoðað fólk í hverfi þínu hvað varðar
[hér birtast bara þeir þættir sem svarendur merktu „já“ við í spurningu 3]?
Minna en
viku
1-2 vikur 2-3 vikur Meira
en 4
vikur
Veit
ekki
Vil
ekki
svara
Mat og drykk 1 2 3 4 88 99
Auka eldsneyti (gas,
olíu, timbur og
fleira)
1 2 3 4 88 99
Skyndihjálparaðstoð
Veit ekki
1 2 3 4 88 99
Flutning milli staða 1 2 3 4 88 99
Húsaskjól 1 2 3 4 88 99
[Allir]
Spurning 4. Hversu vel eða illa treystir þú innviðum samfélagsins (t.d. björgunarsveitum,
lögreglu, yfirvöldum, þjónustufyrirtækjum og fleirum) til að takast á við eftirfarandi
neyðarástand?
Treysti þeim mjög vel
Treysti þeim
frekar vel
Treysti þeim
hvorki vel né illa
Treysti þeim frekar
illa
Treysti þeim
mjög illa
Veit ekki Vil ekki svara
A.
Rafmagnsleysi
1 2 3 4 5
88 99
B.
Eldgos 1 2 3 4 5 88 99
C.
Jarðskjálfta 1 2 3 4 5
88 99
D.
Sjúkdómsfaraldur
1 2 3 4 5
88 99
[Allir]
Spurning 5. Vissir þú að samkvæmt lögum getur lögregla hvatt fólk á aldrinum 18-65 ára
til starfa ef almannavarnarástandi (neyðarástandi) er lýst yfir?
a) já
b) nei
c) Vil ekki svara
103
[Allir]
Spurning 6. Hefur þú og/eða fjölskylda þín einhverjar viðbragðsáætlanir ef langvarandi
rafmagnsleysi verður?
a) já
b) nei
c) veit ekki
d) vil ekki svara
[Ef spurning 6=1]
Spurning 6b. Vinsamlegast lýstu því hvað felst í viðbragðsáætlun þinni/ykkar um
langvarandi rafmagnsleysi______________________________________________
Spurning 7. Hefur þú og/eða fjölskylda þín einhverjar viðbragðsáætlanir fyrir eftirfarandi
neyðartilvik?
Já nei Veit ekki Vil ekki svara
Eldgos
Jarðskjálfta
Sjúkdómafaraldur
[Allir]
Spurning 8. Hvað af eftirtöldu er til staðar á heimili þínu?
Er til
staðar
Er ekki til
staðar
Veit
ekki
Vil
ekki
svara
Vara-rafstöð af einhverju tagi.
Vasaljós.
Útvarp sem gengur fyrir batteríum eða er
handtrekt.
Talstöð, TETRA eða VHF.
Auka batterí fyrir vasaljós, útvarp og talstöð.
Borðsími sem tengist einungis gegnum
símtengingu en ekki í rafmagn.
Fyrstu hjálpar búnaður, (plástrar, grisjur,
teygjubindi, verkjalyf, skæri, o.fl.)
104
Lyfseðilsskyld lyf
Upphitunarbúnaður sem gengur fyrir öðru en
rafmagni (t.d. olíu, gas, timbur o.fl.).
Eldunarbúnaður, t.d. prímus, sem gengur
fyrir öðru en rafmagni. T.d. olíu eða gasi.
Auka olía, gas eða annað fyrir upphitunar- og
eldunarbúnað.
Kerti og/eða olílampa og eldfæri.
Afrit af mikilvægum skjölum (t.d.
bankaupplýsingar, lyfseðla, o.fl.).
Listi yfir mikilvæg símanúmer.
Reiðufé sem dugir fyrir vikulegri neyslu.
Hlýr fatnaður.
Kort af svæðinu sem þú býrð á.
Annar auka persónulegur hreinlætisbúnaður
(t.d. sjampó, tannkrem, tannbursti, sápa,
hreinsiþurrkur (t.d. blautþurrkur) o.fl.). ATH
þetta er umfram það sem notað er dags
daglega.
[Ef „er til staðar“ í spurningu 8. Hér koma þau atriði inn í Catglobe sem var merkt við í
spurningu 8]
Spurning 9. Hvað af eftirtöldu geymir þú saman á ákveðnum stað sem gerir þér kleift að
nálgast í þá neyðartilvikum? Vinsamlegast merkið við allt sem við á.
[Allir]
Spurning 10. Hversu mikið eða lítið átt þú af eftirfarandi matvælum?
Mjög
mikið
Frekar
mikið
Frekar
lítið
Mjög
lítið
Veit
ekki
Vil ekki
svara
Endingagóðum mat (t.d.
dósamatur) sem þarf ekki að
elda
105
Endingargóðum mat (t.d.
dósamatur, þurrmatur eða duft)
sem þarf að hita eða elda með
vatni
Endingarlítinn ferskan mat sem
þarf að kæla svo hann skemmist
ekki.
Endingargóðan mat (ekki
ferskan) sem þarf að kæla svo
hann skemmist ekki
Endingarlítinn mat sem geymist
við stofuhita.
[Allir]
Spurning 11. Hvað telur þú að þú og/eða fjölskyld þín gæti lifað lengi á matvælum sem eru
til á heimili þínu?
a) Minna en 1 viku
b) 1-2 vikur
c) 3-4 vikur
d) Lengur en 4 vikur
e) Veit ekki
f) Vil ekki svara
[Allir]
Spurning 12. Geymir þú sérstakar birgðir af matvælum til að nota í neyðarástandi?
a) Já
b) Nei
c) Veit ekki
d) Vil ekki svara
[Ef spurning 12=1]
Spurning 12b. Endurnýjar þú og/eða fjölskyldan þín reglulega birgðir af matvælum sem
eiga að notast í neyðarástandi? (t.d. á eins til tveggja ára fresti).
a) Já
b) Nei
c) Veit ekki
d) Vil ekki svara
[Allir]
Spurning 13. Hefur þú eða einhver í fjölskyldu þinni tekið námskeið í fyrstu hjálp,
skyndihjálp eða sambærileg námskeið?
106
a) Já
b) Nei
c) Veit ekki
d) Vil ekki svara
Spurning 14. Hefur þú kynnt þér eftirfarandi?
Já nei Veit ekki Vil ekki svara
Viðbragðsáætlanir
á landsvísu (t.d.
varðandi eldgos,
inflúensu o.fl.)
Viðbragðsáætlanir
sveitafélaga (t.d.
varðandi
inflúensu,
sérstakar áætlanir
skóla o.fl.)
Spurning 15. Hvað búa margir á heimili þínu að þér meðtöldum/meðtalinni?
a) 1
b) 2
c) 3-5
d) Fleiri en fimm
e) Veit ekki
f) Vil ekki svara
107
C-II
Appendix CII contains the questioner for the stakeholder survey that was conducted for this
thesis. Also the written answers.
108
109
Table C-1 Answers to question 3, stakeholder survey.
Respondent Answer
1 Keep TETRA communication and emergency and safety –
communication operational as well as guarantee 100% answering of the
emergency dispatch (112).
2 System to help Icelanders in foreign countries
3 Transportation
4 Supervision of energy affairs during crisis
5 Electricity distribution management
6 Emergency management during crisis
7 Law enforcement is part of response and emergency –networks as well
as I am affiliated with civil defence
8 Oversight on telecommunication equipment for TETRA and monitor
station for sea traffic
Table C-2 Answers to question 5, stakeholder survey.
Respondent Answer
1 Transmission lines are above ground and ICT distributers do not have
enough emergency power
2 Undefined and incompatible standards for emergency power for
distribution and insufficient action for prevention. Insufficient
information to stakeholders regarding status on emergency power,
especially for socially important telecommunication and information
infrastructure.
3 Insufficient emergency power (diesel engines)
4 To dependent infrastructures. Electric Magnetic Pulse. Command
centres open for viruses or hacks.
5 Electricity distribution: Not meshed well enough, transmission lines and
substations are not equipped to handle big storms. ICT: Not meshed well
enough, not prepared for long duration electricity failure.
6 Bad distribution network. Needs n+1 connection
7 Transmission lines above ground
110
Table C-3: Answers to Question 9, stakeholder survey.
Respondent Answer
1 Keep away from hazardous zones.
2 It came clear the other day that endurance and tranquillity of the public
even regarding short period storm is small and has probably lessened in
recent years. It does not take much for 112 to fill up on small complains.
I think in general the public depends too much on emergency and rescue
personnel and therefore does not give household sustainability enough
consideration for long duration crisis.
3 No.
4 Stay where they are.
5 Keep calm, monitor announcements and follow instruction.
6 No, have not seen anything regarding that subject. However I know
according to law that, civilians from age 18-65 years old, have a duty to
operate for civil defence during crisis from directions from the Police
Commissioner.
111
Appendix D
Appendix D contains a link to the data from the public preparedness survey in pdf format:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/c6mg715ggwj8q1i/Gogn_GMP_04april_skil_Excel_290415.p
df?dl=0
Further access to the data contact the author of this thesis.
This appendix also shows further analysis of certain questions from the public preparedness
survey.
Figure D-22: Further analysis on Question 10. Number of respondents and the number of items they own can
be seen on the column chart.
Figure D-23: Further analysis on Question 10. The graph shows the distribution of equipment ownership for
respondents stating they were well prepared for electricity failure. The average ownership was around 11,4
items which was around 2 items more than for all respondents.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Nu
mb
er
of
resp
on
de
nts
Quentity of items owned
Equipment ownership quentity
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
equ
ipm
ent/
item
s o
wn
ed
Respondents
Well prepared equipment ownership
Distribution of ownership
Average ownership
112
Figure D-24: Further analysis on Question 12. The column chart shows the number of items (this case food
categories from question 10) respondents thought they had in their household. For example the graph shows
that around 40 respondents had “very much” of 1 item from the category, around 150 respondents had
rather little of 2 items, etc.
Figure D-25: Further analysis on Question 14. The graph shows how many percentage of prepared
respondents owned emergency supply of food.
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
1 item 2 items 3 items 4 items 5 items
Ownership of food
Very much
Rather much
Rather little
Very little
7%
93%
Prepared ownership of special food supply
Yes No
113
Figure D-26: Further analysis on Question 15. The graph shows that every prepared respondents say they or
someone in their family knows first aid.
Figure D-27: Further analysis on Question 16. 29% of prepared respondents are familiar with national
contingency plans which is 11% higher than for the whole group of respondents.
Prepared knowledge of first aid
Yes No
29%
71%
Prepared knowledge of national contingency plans
Yes No
114
Figure D-28: Further analysis on Question 16. 14% of prepared respondents say they are familiar with
regional contingency plans which is very similar to the whole group of respondents.
14%
86%
Prepared knowledge of regional contingency plans
Yes No
